#fringe feminism

[nachoaveragejoe234]

ironically most of this demonization of girly girls and romance and "damsels" come from women. Specifically the fringe feminists. They do this with dolls and whining about "Barbie/Monster High makes children want to be anorexic/bimbos/consumerists!", but will never complain about GI Joe or He-Man making kids want to be buff and violent or in the case of Joe specifically, join the army (GI Joe is blatant nationalist war propaganda and a worse influence than princesses or malls or fairies, for both boys and girls). They will always attack characters who are more accurate to describe as damsels like Princess Peach. They also complain a lot less about non princess characters. They always go after Aurora or Snow White or Ariel, but they'll conveniently leave out or talk less about the following who actually get in danger, even the strong ones: Wendy Darling, who spends a lot of the movie being targeted by Neverland residents bent on killing her. Tink. The mermaids. The pirates.

Jane Porter: She gets chased when she first enters the jungle, Tarzan has to save her. Then in Tarzan and Jane, she gets kidnapped by a spy. Then in the cartoon series, she gets targeted a fair amount by other villains like Queen La and the Russians.

Belle: She gets harassed by Gaston, gets attacked by wolves, and in the Christmas movie she almost drowns.

Esmeralda: Chased by a lecherous old man who equal parts wants to marry her and wants her dead. She almost gets burned at the stake.

Alice Liddell: She almost drowns in her own tears, is almost set on fire when the Dodo lights a match (in between her legs which is kinda sus btw), and almost gets her head cut off.

Penny from the Rescuers: Kidnapped by Madame Medusa.

Eilonwy: Kidnapped by the Horned King.

Olivia Flaversham from Great Mouse Detective: Kidnapped by Ratigan, then he tries to off her (oh add Queen Victoria as a bonus damsel who is almost fed to a cat).

Jenny from Oliver and Company: Kidnapped by a mafioso.

Melody from Little Mermaid 2: Morgana freezes her as she turns human, leaving her to die.

Kida: Held hostage by Helga, in the sequel she and Audrey are kidnapped by vikings.

Pocahontas: In the sequel, she's locked in jail, then she's almost stabbed by Ratcliffe.

Meg: Kidnapped by Hades.

Amelia from Treasure Planet: Kidnapped by the villain.

Elsa and Anna: Hans tries to kill them both. Anna by leaving her in a cold room, Elsa by stabbing.

Giselle from Enchanted: She's a parody of this damsel trope.

Gogo and Honey from Big Hero 6: They get in danger in the cartoon several times.

Tiana: Gets captured by rednecks in her frog form.

The harp lady from Mickey and the Beanstalk: Kidnapped by the giant.

Where's the attacking of these characters? Only Snow, Aurora, Ariel, and Cindy are bad I guess

Fandom femmephobia seriously needs to be talked about more. 

We know all female characters face fandom misogyny of all times, but no one talks about how sometimes fandom will mercilessly rag on and hate the more conventionally feminine female characters the most, how often those people will dismiss the feminine female characters as shallow and stupid, how often they see them as weak, scheming bitches, or as mean girls, while praising a more masculine female character in a positive way or as “not like other girls”. 

Like, aside from the whole Sansa Stark scenario that is decades old, there is also the Disney Princess fandom with how they treat the earlier princesses(Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora) as weak and nothing more than damsels-in-distress, ignoring the fact that they, Cinderella in particular, show that kindness, softness, and vulnerability don’t automatically equal weakness, that female characters don’t have to be warriors or aggressive or stereotypical “strong independent women” to be strong. And how they were all forced into traumatizing situations, Cinderella was literally ABUSED with nowhere to go while Snow White was a fourteen-year-old girl being hunted down to be killed because her stepmother envied her beauty, and Aurora was cursed at birth because an evil fairy wasn’t invited to a party. And yet they remained kind, optimistic, and strong through it all. But go on about how they are weak and passive role models for little girls. And often this is coupled with treating Mulan, Merida, and Pocahontas as better and placing them in the “not like other girls” category because they take on more traditionally masculine roles and are praised for being tomboys in comparison to the more girly princesses(when Mulan and Pocahontas aren’t even tomboys), especially Merida just because she doesn’t sing or have a love interest, as if singing to birds or falling in love makes you weak. 

People also love to do this with Ariel and Rapunzel, writing them off as shallow cardboard cutouts, pretending Ariel only wanted to be human for a guy or that Rapunzel was a weak fragile damsel in distress who needed saving by Flynn from her tower, ignoring the fact that she tied him up and forced him to take her to see the floating lanterns, even threatening him with her frying pan again when he tried to back out of the deal. And it is her compassion and willingness to dream that stop the hypermasculine ruffians and thugs at the Snuggly Duckling to stop their mindless violence and open up about their own hobbies(some of which are seen as traditionally feminine!). But a lot of you don’t seem to be willing to realize that! 

Even in the Encanto fandom, this attitude prevails. Look at how Isabela and Dolores are often demonized and villainized by the fandom, how Isabela’s issues are all brushed aside in favor of seeing her as just a one-note mean girl, how Dolores is seen as the “true villain” of the movie(and how I’ve seen more than one people say that Dolores is someone who “intentionally” goes after married men because of her prophecy), how Pepa is often demonized for her emotions when being highly emotional is often seen as a stereotypically feminine trait, and how fans often gloat about how Luisa merch outsells Isabela merch by portraying Luisa as a “not like other girls/strong female character” and Isabela as just a pretty face and only being there to look beautiful, because “haha well would you look at that, little girls want the masculine strong girl and not the feminine pretty girl!”, while also masculinizing Luisa at the same time. Or how they’ll say they hate Isabela because they’re tired of “pretty slim girly pink princesses” as if being that way is an insult or a bad thing. Plus there are many fans even today who think that Isabela herself is not like other girls because she breaks out of the norm of perfection in the end, and mistaking it for breaking out of femininity. Because obviously femininity is a trap that renders girls weak and docile and obedient and incapable of being themselves or more than pretty ornaments to be looked at, and the only way to be independent and strong and embrace your individuality and do what you wanna do is by ditching your femininity and being masculine, right? 

It’s just annoying to witness and I wish it would stop. Let’s please stop shitting on female characters for being traditionally feminine/pretty/glamorous/soft/compassionate and prioritizing traditionally masculine traits of aggression/violence/stoicism. You can be strong and also be feminine, and embarrassingly this obviously true fact still falls on deaf ears. Let’s do better as fandoms, people. Not just the Encanto fandoms, but fandoms across the board. 

[fite-club]

if i have to see one more person insist that believing in male privilege and patriarchy is "TERFism" i'm gonna start biting

[femvent]

I genuinely was one of those women scared to speak out for fear of backlash. Getting called transphobic over pointing out that men objectify women systematically snapped me out of it.

Honestly, hot take from me, but introspection about the misogyny that's taught to you since birth (especially for AMAB people) is so discouraged in trans/LGBTQ circles that you end up with echo chambers of people repeating anti-feminist points. And, in my experience, the social hierarchy online makes it so that trans women have the last word about what is and isn't misogyny. I was shamed into being quiet by both cis men who treated me like I was "seeing things" and trans women who, because they didnt experience the kind of misogyny I talked about, spoke over me.

Talking about misogyny without even mentioning trans people gets you called a TERF too, unless you praise men. It's a very anxiety inducing place to be in.

I just checked the comments under Neil Gaiman's last post to see if anybody was even talking about the situation and saw someone say that not trusting cis men is TERF rhetoric. You all are a lost cause. You hate TERFs more than you care about women and their oppression at the hands of men.

[lightdancer1]

All the same the line between Dworkin's feminism and TERFs is, ironically, a straight one:

And thus the sad irony that Andrea Dworkin's critiques of the normalization of violence against women, rhetorically and in symbolism and in all other things became redefined as 'the innate existence of people who aren't my particular niche version of a woman itself is violent terrorism.' It logically flows out of Dworkin's concepts and her phrasing, and is why the TERFs are ultimately exactly what they originally claimed to be before deciding their own label was a slur. And why they've redefined themselves as 'gender critical.'

They grew out of third wave feminism's innate hostility to gender framing, the difference is that they went to the shallows and then forged an iron curtain beyond which they did not intend to venture, and took the paranoid aspects latent to the Dworkin brand of feminism and amplified it to become the only aspects.

TERFs unfortunately are a logical outcome of both feminism and ideology and how any ideology can start with one thing and go down paths arcane and bizarre to people who've never bothered to study how they got there and while no less bizarre after, at least understandable.

[brandyschillace]

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Transgender Clinic

I finished the first round of edits on my nonfiction history of trans rights today. It will publish with Norton in 2025, but I decided, because I feel so much of my community is here, to provide a bit of the introduction.

[begin sample]

The Institute for Sexual Sciences had offered safe haven to homosexuals and those we today consider transgender for nearly two decades. It had been built on scientific and humanitarian principles established at the end of the 19th century and which blossomed into the sexology of the early 20th. Founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish homosexual, the Institute supported tolerance, feminism, diversity, and science. As a result, it became a chief target for Nazi destruction: “It is our pride,” they declared, to strike a blow against the Institute. As for Magnus Hirschfeld, Hitler would label him the “most dangerous Jew in Germany.”6 It was his face Hitler put on his antisemitic propaganda; his likeness that became a target; his bust committed to the flames on the Opernplatz. You have seen the images. You have watched the towering inferno that roared into the night. The burning of Hirschfeld’s library has been immortalized on film reels and in photographs, representative of the Nazi imperative, symbolic of all they would destroy. Yet few remember what they were burning—or why.

Magnus Hirschfeld had built his Institute on powerful ideas, yet in their infancy: that sex and gender characteristics existed upon a vast spectrum, that people could be born this way, and that, as with any other diversity of nature, these identities should be accepted. He would call them Intermediaries.

Intermediaries carried no stigma and no shame; these sexual and Gender nonconformists had a right to live, a right to thrive. They also had a right to joy. Science would lead the way, but this history unfolds as an interwar thriller—patients and physicians risking their lives to be seen and heard even as Hitler began his rise to power. Many weren’t famous; their lives haven’t been celebrated in fiction or film. Born into a late-nineteenth-century world steeped in the “deep anxieties of men about the shifting work, social roles, and power of men over women,” they came into her own just as sexual science entered the crosshairs of prejudice and hate. The Institute’s own community faced abuse, blackmail, and political machinations; they responded with secret publishing campaigns, leaflet drops, pro-homosexual propaganda, and alignments with rebel factions of Berlin’s literati. They also developed groundbreaking gender affirmation surgeries and the first hormone cocktail for supportive gender therapy.

Nothing like the Institute for Sexual Sciences had ever existed before it opened its doors—and despite a hundred years of progress, there has been nothing like it since. Retrieving this tale has been an exercise in pursuing history at its edges and fringes, in ephemera and letters, in medal texts, in translations. Understanding why it became such a target for hatred tells us everything about our present moment, about a world that has not made peace with difference, that still refuses the light of scientific evidence most especially as it concerns sexual and reproductive rights.

[end sample]

I wanted to add a note here: so many people have come together to make this possible. Like Ralf Dose of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft (Magnus Hirschfeld Archive), Berlin, and Erin Reed, American journalist and transgender rights activist—Katie Sutton, Heike Bauer. I am also deeply indebted to historian, filmmaker and formative theorist Susan Stryker for her feedback, scholarship, and encouragement all along the way. And Laura Helmuth, editor of Scientific American, whose enthusiasm for a short article helped bring the book into being. So many LGBTQ+ historians, archivists, librarians, and activists made the work possible, that its publication testifies to the power of the queer community and its dedication to preserving and celebrating history. But I ALSO want to mention you, folks here on tumblr who have watched and encouraged and supported over the 18 months it took to write it (among other books and projects). @neil-gaiman has been especially wonderful, and @always-coffee too: thank you.

The support of this community has been important as I’ve faced backlash in other quarters. Thank you, all.

NOTE: they are attempting to rebuild the lost library, and you can help: https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/archivzentrum/archive-center/

[genderkoolaid]

While 4B has been a topic of conversation online for a few years, sporadically gaining popularity among U.S. TikTok users in moments like the “I chose the bear” trend, Trump’s reelection brought it front and center again. In the days following Trump’s win, online searches for the 4B Movement saw an unprecedented spiked. Across social media, women are posting that they need to divest from men, amassing hundreds of thousands of likes and millions of views. But the conversation about 4B in the U.S. is rife with misconceptions about the movement, including false assertions that 4B accounts for the majority of feminist thought in South Korea. It’s important to note that despite the global attention, 4B is a fringe movement in South Korea, and Han says the vast majority of South Korean feminists do not abide by it. “I just want to make sure that people understand that 4B does not speak for Korean feminism,” Han tells Them. “4B is not representative of Korean feminist politics. A lot of us see something a lot more diverse and a lot more intersectional than what 4B calls for.” Though the 4B movement is quickly gaining wind in the U.S., this is far from the first time American feminists have called for a divestment from men to combat misogyny. In the 1960s, political lesbianism emerged from the second-wave feminist movement as a means of decentering men from the lives of women. Like 4B, political lesbians aimed to divest from dating and having sex with men. They asserted that any feminist can be a lesbian, defining lesbian as any woman who did not have sex with men. “We call it 4B now, but it's political lesbianism,” Han says. “Essentially it's the same thing too, but the one aspect of being a political lesbian was you may or may not [actually be a lesbian], and sometimes you really didn't have sex with other women, but [instead lived by] the idea that you prioritize your relationships with other women, that you prioritize your solidarity with other women.” But with the 4B movement both in South Korea and the U.S., Han says this isn’t the case, as men still find themselves front and center in the discourse. She adds, “I've never heard so much discussion of straight men. Can we just decenter them?” [...] Han says that they hope this blip in interest about 4B fades into the next news cycle, as there are so many other forms of intersectional South Korean feminism that do include queer and trans people. Ultimately, many of the current discussions about 4B are coming from a place of privilege that queer people don’t have the luxury of accessing. “Queer and trans folks know that isolation or imagining a life ‘just on our own’ — that's not our reality,” Han says. “That's not our vision. In many ways, I think our experiences tell us that we have to live with people who hate us. We have to work with and against and fight folks who mean to harm us and simply disavowing them or refusing to interact with them or somehow running away and keeping to ourselves, that's never been possible.”

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Building a Hornet’s Nest

Male Wasp Hybrid Harem x Feminized Male Reader (CW: Noncon, musk, pheromones, bukkake, gangbang, double penetration, wasp men, oviposition, feminized male reader, drug-like cum, wasp transformation, DNA manipulation, general yandere behavior) Word Count: 3.7k (Sorry that this took so long. Sorry that this is so weird. I hope some people can find the degeneracy within themselves to enjoy it.) 

When your distant uncle had passed away and left you a property you were surprised to say the least. You were more surprised to learn that it was on Arcadia and that your uncle had never lived long enough to go and see it as he had been ill for some time before his passing and he was not particularly old either. Years ago, unknown to most of the family, he had procured a modest plot of land on Arcadia, a distant planet on the fringes of known space. A true modern day frontier. It was known for its mega-flora. With flowers that grew to the size of trees in some cases. It was also known for its giant docile bees. They were just like bees on Earth except much much larger and they were stingless, it was very easy to domesticate them and now people used them on Arcadia to develop many rare and exotic honey types from the strange alien flowers. Your uncle had wanted to be a beekeeper, he was apparently going to invite you on the venture with him seeing as how you were both into farming and working the land and you had helped him with his beekeeping when you were younger, but he never recovered from his illness so you did not find out until his death. With only a bit of hesitance you decided to pursue your uncle’s dream. When you first got to Arcadia you were in awe by how tranquil and picturesque it was, the pictures and videos that you had seen certainly did it no justice. Unlike Earth most of the foliage was various shades of red, orange, and yellow. Giant blooms of every shape and color imaginable were everywhere, with the exception of the clearing that a small settlement had been built in. Despite being here for a few decades it was still very much a quaint little frontier town, pleasant enough people, offering just the bare essential services. Then there was your new plot of land a few miles from town. It was… run down… to say the least. But you made due, you had sold everything of significant value that you had owned back on Earth and were fully committing to this new venture. And, after a few months, your efforts finally paid off. A giant mansion sized barn for your future bees was built and your house was repaired. All that was left to do was wait for your shipment of buzzy friends to arrive. Well they wouldn’t be so busy when they arrived, as they would still be pupa, but within a week or two the pupa would be finished developing into full sized giant docile bees, they would accept the barn as their home and set up shop. The day came when your shipment finally landed and you were so thrilled, they came off the hover truck and you hurried them into their new home, carefully placing them horizontally into cells in the walls and capping them. In truth you had been more than a bit worried, you were running perilously low on funds and had to go with a discount bee supplier that seemed just a slight bit unreliable. But it seemed you had worried for nothing, here were your bee pupa, nice and healthy. Though they did seem to be a slightly different shape than they looked from the advertisements and videos, you were sure that nothing was wrong. You could barely contain your excitement, you had heard that these bees easily imprint on their humans and are very loving, soon they would establish a hive and your goals would be obtained. It would be slow at first, as you only had enough to get three pupa, but you would get there eventually. You couldn’t stop yourself from checking the barn every few hours. 9 or 10 times each and every single day. The wait was torture. But finally, after about 12 days, you heard buzzing coming from the barn when you stepped out of your house in the morning, you practically tripped over yourself running back inside to grab the collars for them and then dashed back outside and across the field of flowers you had started to grow for them. You opened the door to the barn and… it was NOT what you were expecting. The three pupa were no longer in the cells you had packed them so lovingly into, but they sure as hell were not bees either. Instead, standing before you were three wasp-men. You knew what these were, genetically engineered human-wasp hybrids, that typically had smaller genetic contributions from several ant and bee species as well, that were typically used in highly regulated projects or otherwise extremely shady sources of labor on the very unregulated frontier planets. The question was how did you get them? Did someone’s order get mixed with yours? With how much energy and enthusiasm you opened the door with, they were all now intently staring at you, and to say that they were intimidating would have been an understatement. They all looked fairly similar to one another, red and yellow plates of chitinous exoskeletons covered their feet, arms, legs, chests, and backs. The only thing lacking the exoskeletons were their faces, abs, asses, and crotches. Which were very much exposed, showing off scarily long cocks and heavy balls. They had red bug-like eyes, they had fangs but otherwise regular mouths, but they sat between a set of wicked looking mandibles. Antenna twitched on their heads, sticking out from long blood red hair. Each had a set of large wings folded behind them. Their antennas twitched in your direction as they also sniffed the air curiously. Uh-oh. They were from a shady source so who knows how unpredictably they could act towards you, so you wisely decided to make a hasty retreat, but they quickly flew over to you and pulled you back deeper into the building. “Where’s the rush?” one of them inquired in a slightly buzzing but deep voice, “Me and my friends just woke up here and need some answers.” “Uh-uh okay, sure, what do you want to know?” The one speaking put his arm roughly around your waist and pulled you closer to him. “Well, we are looking for the person meant to be our queen, do you know where they are? Your scent is the only one here. Did you put us in the wall compartments?” “There isn’t any queen, but y-yeah I was the one who bought your pupa and put them in there.” He took a moment to feel you over with his antenna, it probably would have tickled had you not been scared shitless. “Sooo… you’re the queen? Or are you under someone??” “There isn't one! And I own this land and made this building for bees…” One of the other two wasp men chimed in at this. “Ha! Bees? Those weak passive ones that have no human in em and are about as smart as a pet dog? You’re lucky you got us instead, we are far superior!” The one holding you now much too tightly replied while flexing his free arm,”He’s right, we are much better. You really lucked out little queen~ We can keep you much safer.” He licked up your neck with a long narrow tongue making you shiver. “I told you, there isn’t a queen!” You were beginning to grow annoyed with the cyclic nature of this conversation. “You bought us? You own this territory? You put us in cells so we could grow?” “W-well yeah but… I’m n-not-” “You’re our queen then~ Don’t be scared we’ll keep you all safe from the big scary world! You’re far too weak and squishy to just be left alone.” “Ha! Yeah, just a pathetic squishy little human,” the third one that had been silent up until now chuckled as he poked you hard in the stomach. The one holding you grinded gently into your ass, his cock fully erect and prodding your cheeks. “This ass is soft too~ Bet it feels great inside, doesn’t it little queen?” “S-stop, please, I’m not a w-woman!” “Awe, our queen is a bit dumb too~ Good thing we came along to take care of you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you’re our queen yet, we’ll rape you full of our eggs. You’ll look so lovely full of our spawn~” As he said all of this he began to gently rub his hand against your crotch and the other two hybrid men stepped closer. Between the unwanted touching and the mention of the word rape you decided it may be worth the risk to try and escape anyway, but your struggles didn’t last long. The man holding you shook you a bit violently until you were unsteady and still and then held the top of his wrist to your neck. A long thick black needle protruded from his wrist and was pointed at you threateningly. You turned away, trying to put as much space between your neck and the sinister looking needle as possible. “Maybe you aren’t too dumb, you know what this does don’t you my queen? It’ll hurt terribly before paralyzing you and allowing us to play with you at our leisure and make you fulfill your royal duty~” You let out a pathetic whimper in response. “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t want to use it. How can you squirm around my dick if I did? So just relax and let this happen the easier, more fun way, okay?” He nibbled on your earlobe and you went completely limp in his grasp, signaling that you wouldn’t put up anymore of a fight. “Heh heh, excellent choice, my queen~” The other two wasps chuckled cruelly as well as one pulled your shirt off and the other wasted no time in unburdening you of your pants and boxers. They stared at you hungrily. Your nudity only fueled your fear and you had to stifle your instinct to flail, thrash, punch, and run. But doing so would surely make things much worse for you, better to just let them have their way and get it over with and hope you could sneak out after maybe when they were sleeping or otherwise distracted. You could feel the cock of the hybrid behind you gently rubbing against your hole as he licked and bit at your neck. He bent down behind you and spread your cheeks, making you shudder as an inhumanly long tongue prodded your hole before sliding in deep, stretching you out gently as it probed and making you twitch and grow hard as it found and focused on your prostate. The genetics for their tongues definitely came from long tongued bees. The wasp man behind you got up and resumed pressing his cock into your hole. “Just getting you good and ready queen~” He whispered softly into your ear. His large cock mercifully massaged copious amounts of thick precum into you to prep you for breeding. At least the entry wouldn’t be unstretched or dry, because that’s not something you would have put past them. The other two wasps were busy rubbing their hands all over your body, rubbing your belly, groping your ass cheeks, stroking your face with surprising tenderness, and contrasting that with rough greedy groping of your soft thighs and tugging at your hair. As the one behind you slipped inside your well lubed ass a second wasp enveloped your hard cock entirely within its mouth while the third kissed you passionately, its tongue fervently exploring every inch of your mouth. You couldn’t even yell in pleasure or protest the pain of having your ass invaded by a large inhuman cock as the long thin went down your throat, making you gag a bit. Finally respecting your need to breathe, the wasp removed itself from your face and began biting your sensitive neck, adding to the complete overly stimulating waves of sensation already being caused by having your dick enveloped by a hot mouth and your prostate gently kissed by the rhythmic thrusts of the other two insectoid men. The one attending your cock took his free hand to massage your balls and that led you to possibly the quickest orgasm of your life. In any other situation you would have been totally humiliated, but you were long past having any dignity today. The one behind you did not relent in his fucking of you, but instead picked up the pace a bit as he felt your body shudder, the one sucking you off hungrily swallowed your load before licking his lips and getting up. “My, you were really pent up my queen, and you produce such sweet honey for me!” He pressed his lips to yours, letting the taste of your own cum permeate your mouth. Between the kiss and the constant pounding of your ass you whimpered as you were already hard again, the wasp that had previously had its tongue down your throat now replacing the one that swallowed your cum at your cock, kissing the sensitive organ before licking it and sucking your recently emptied nuts. You whimpered as they continued to manhandle your sensitive body. The one pumping into your tight hole finally slamming in hard and cumming forcefully, depositing something round and hard into you as he did, making you flinch a bit in surprise as you remembered that they reproduced via eggs, it did not really hurt, but you felt a tingling inside where the waspoid cum touched you. The cock inside you lingered a while as it filled you but once it slid out and away from you your ass’ rest was short lived. One of the wasps laid with his back on the ground and with his cock pointing up, the other two bringing you over to him and forcing you to lower yourself onto his eager, drooling, prick. Your well stretched hole slid on him easily and he gripped you tight and forced you up and down on his length. That special spot inside you was rubbed once more, making you shudder in unwilling pleasure, your body completely betraying you. The pace was slow enough for you, and surprisingly he seemed unwilling to seriously injure his “queen”. As you were finally getting used to the motions one of the other wasps, the one that had already filled your ass, came up behind and slid his cock back inside you with his friend’s so that you were now being plowed in tandem by the both of them. As you gasped from the sudden extra intrusion abusing your insides the third wasp took advantage of your open mouth and wasted no time in putting his dick in your open mouth. You could taste his precum, oddly enough it had just a slight soothing effect and you noticed it tasted of honey. Filled to the brim with cock, you started to get a bit more relaxed as time went on, not overly so. You were still very unwilling and any pleasure was purely physical, incidental, and frustrating, but whatever was in the honey like fluid dripping from his cock was definitely making you a bit less stiff and just a tad bit less defiant. While this was happening you thought you could remember hearing something about this, that modified wasp and bee species made substances that could calm down their queens when distressed, both in fluids and via pheromones. And now that you thought about it the musk that hung heavily in the air was strangely comforting, it was like the more of the precum that dripped down your throat the more you were affected by the smell that these men were giving off. Not nearly enough to really lose yourself though, it was far more subtle than that. It was also probably why you did not feel too much pain anymore despite two dicks pistoning your ass, as one cock thrust forward the other pulled back. All the while the one occupying your mouth was happily pumping away, content with enjoying the wet warmth of your mouth as he fed you more pre. Between all the sensations overtaking your body, the cocks sliding in and out of you, the pheromones and relaxing fluid, and the hands roaming over your sides, face, and thighs, you couldn’t help but blow another load, right on the wasp that was below you. “See? It feels good to be our queen, doesn’t it,” he asked with a mocking chuckle knowing full well it was just your body’s response and it didn’t mean you were enjoying your predicament. After several minutes the one making you suck him pulled out and moaned as he came all over your face, covering you in warm slippery fluid. There were no eggs in this ejaculation, he was certainly saving all of those to be deposited deep inside you to go along with his friend’s. Your skin tingled a bit where the cum touched you and you began to feel just a bit dizzy as your inhibitions slowly lowered just a bit and you became even more relaxed. The cum was much more potent than just the precum and the load up your ass was gradually affecting you as well. Musk permeating the air was much thicker than it had been, or maybe you just noticed it more now, but it was making you drool a bit and you couldn’t help but bounce back a bit against the dicks in your suddenly hungry hole. “I feel really weird… can we stop now…” You stifled a cry, something wasn’t right, you were much more sensitive than normal to everything and you were having difficulty thinking clearly. The wasps all smirked as they ignored you, knowing that their fluid was slowly turning you into a weak little queen they could worship and fill with egg after egg. It was slowly changing your very DNA, making you receptive to hybrid pheromones, making you crave them. The one that had previously unloaded in you pulled out and came all over your back. Moments later the one below you working you on his shaft like some kind of living sex toy slammed you down to the base of his cock and filled you deeply with even more eggs and semen, causing you to spasm and moan weakly with a dry orgasm of your own. “Fuck! You’re a great incubator!” While you were panting and trying to recover the wasp previously abusing your mouth unceremoniously pulled you off the cock you were on and gripped you tight from behind, his erection easily sliding in your cum leaking entrance. “Not done yet, being queen is very busy work, you have to take my eggs too~” “P-please no more, I-I feel funny,” you pleaded desperately as your head was swimming with mixed signals. You knew you didn’t want this but you were so light headed you could barely think, and now these wasp men smelled so alluring, and wouldn’t having more eggs in you feel so nice? “I-I n-need to s-stop…” You felt an instinctual need to keep letting them fill you up, but at the same time you were burning up and truly felt feeble and sick. “Shhh, shhh, just relax, okay? You have been such a good mate for us so far~” He licked a long stripe up your neck with his thin tongue and held you tighter as he continued grinding into you. Without warning he started flying a few feet in the air while still breeding you, his insect instincts telling him to give you a proper nuptial flight. In no time the other wasps joined in as well, both of them in front of you, tending to their precious queen. Rubbing you up and down, smearing the fluid that covered you into your skin, giving little kisses and nibbles, and caresses where they saw fit. They were a bit brutish, but they knew the transition occurring in all of your cells was a rough one and they wanted to help their queen embrace his new role as easily as possible, especially since you had been such a perfect weak little mate for them. You would have continued to beg for them to stop, but it felt so nice now. And it would have been so ungrateful. These nice men were taking care of you so sweetly, giving you lots of eggs to tend to, choosing you to take care of them. It made you feel fluttery in the pit of your stomach. You were so lucky. With a shudder the final load of eggs was unloaded into you, the wasp man behind you wrapping his legs around yours as he came. They all gently lowered you to the ground, one of them keeping you in his arms with you leaning against him and burying your head in his neck before passing out from sheer exhaustion. The wasps’ fluids were still hard at work rewriting your DNA, somewhat like a virus. It was definitely taking a toll on you. Your harem of wasp-men took you to your house and had you all washed up and bundled in your bed, keeping a dedicated vigil over you as you had a deep but feverish sleep. They did not like seeing you uncomfortable, unless it was from them teasing you. But they knew it would be worth it, when you woke up in a few days you would be totally dependent on them. Your new insect DNA demanding you to always be by one of them for safety and telling you that you would constantly need to be incubating their eggs. Their pheromones would comfort, alert, or arouse you based on what they needed to communicate and you would produce some as well that allowed them to track you and be aware of your condition. You’d even grow antenna and your skin would take a reddish tone. You would technically be a wasp hybrid yourself, but that would be the extent of your transformation. Just a weak incubator hopelessly dependent on them for the rest of your life.

[3liza]

as you can see in the photos from the actual fucking show, Regency dresses did not actually show your waist. as a result regency corsets did not tightlace you, they were basically a longline pushup bra. it was physically impossible to tightlace a corset until the invention of the metal grommet in the mid 1800s.

so either wardrobe is torturing actresses with corsets that don't fit for no reason, the actresses are lying because "ouuf ouchie my corset hurt so bad" is such a popular chat show topic, or something else is going on. but not a single part of this article is factual. anyone wearing a garment that prevented them from eating, breathing or moving without injury on a daily basis would just die in tbe premodern era. wearing a corset that caused bruises for 10 hours a day would cause infected pressure ulcers which would become septic and kill you. there is no record of this being an issue for victorian women or any other population that used corsets because it just didn't happen

i have to emphasize to you that working class women did hard manual labor in corsets for hundreds of years. this is because working women did not tightlace. their corsets were basically back braces that made holding a lot of heavy warm woolens together easier without elastic, and kept their boobs out of the way of farming and kitchen tasks. tightlacing was considered a fringe activity even in tbe Victorian era. the illusion of a tiny waist was created with moderate corseting and LOTS of padding of the hips and bust. there are equivalent "boobs and belly protection" type garments in most areas of the planet where it's not too hot to wear them. corsets are not equivalent to foot binding, neck stretching, or lip and ear plates. tightlacing is not particularly immobilizing either if you have the right corset, there are thousands of people who are hobbyist or medical tightlacers who do fine.

i think the "corsets were instruments of torture" myth is kept afloat by White Feminism. we (i and my fellow white women) need a justification for victim mentality so badly that we will accept without critical thought the suggestion that our ancestors in the English peasantry did hard manual labor bending over in a field for 15 hours a day in a bit of underwear that caused organ dislocation, hypoxia, pressure ulcers and random syncope because they were just so tough and so glamorous and so oppressed by Male Expectations. somehow this is easier for us to believe than "Hollywood wardrobe direction is so divorced from historical reality they are putting actresses in clothes that don't fit and injuring them". let's all go on jimmy kimmel and talk about how strong and brave Women are for going to a party with a 24" waist, my god

[sunny-day-jack-official]

URGENT! Stop KOSA!

Hey all, this is BáiYù and Sauce here with something that isn't necessarily SnaccPop related, but it's important nonetheless. For those of you who follow US politics, The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate yesterday and is moving forward.

This is bad news for everyone on the internet, even outside of the USA.

What is KOSA?

While it's officially known as "The Kids Online Safety Act," KOSA is an internet censorship masquerading as another "protect the children" bill, much in the same way SESTA/FOSTA claimed that it would stop illegal sex trafficking but instead hurt sex workers and their safety. KOSA was originally introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. and Bill Cassidy, R-La. as a way to update the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Act, raising the age of consent for data collection to 16 among other things. You can read the original press release of KOSA here, while you can read the full updated text of the bill on the official USA Congress website.

You can read the following articles about KOSA here:

EFF: The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

CyberScoop: Children’s online safety bills clear Senate hurdle despite strong civil liberties pushback

TeenVogue: The Kids Online Safety Act Would Harm LGBTQ+ Youth, Restrict Access to Information and Community

The quick TL;DR:

KOSA authorizes an individual state attorneys general to decide what might harm minors

Websites will likely preemptively remove and ban content to avoid upsetting state attorneys generals (this will likely be topics such as abortion, queerness, feminism, sexual content, and others)

In order for a platform to know which users are minors, they'll require a more invasive age and personal data verification method

Parents will be granted more surveillance tools to see what their children are doing on the web

KOSA is supported by Christofascists and those seeking to harm the LGBTQ+ community

If a website holding personally identifying information and government documents is hacked, that's a major cybersecurity breach waiting to happen

What Does This Mean?

You don't have to look far to see or hear about the violence being done to the neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities worldwide, who are oftentimes one and the same. Social media sites censoring discussion of these topics would stand to do even further harm to folks who lack access to local resources to understand themselves and the hardships they face; in addition, the fact that websites would likely store personally identifying information and government documents means the death of any notion of privacy.

Sex workers and those living in certain countries already are at risk of losing their ways of life, living in a reality where their online activities are closely surveilled; if KOSA officially becomes law, this will become a reality for many more people and endanger those at the fringes of society even worse than it already is.

Why This Matters Outside of The USA

I previously mentioned SESTA/FOSTA, which passed and became US law in 2018. This bill enabled many of the anti-adult content attitudes that many popular websites are taking these days as well as the tightening of restrictions laid down by payment processors. Companies and sites hosted in the USA have to follow US laws even if they're accessible worldwide, meaning that folks overseas suffer as well.

What Can You Do?

If you're a US citizen, contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose KOSA. This can be as an email, letter, or phone call that you make to your state Senator.

For resources on how to do so, view the following links:

https://www.badinternetbills.com/#kosa

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

If you live outside of the US or cannot vote, the best thing you can do is sign the petition at the Stop KOSA website, alert your US friends about what's happening, and raise some noise.

Above all else, don’t panic. By staying informed by what’s going on, you can prepare for the legal battles ahead.

[the3musketeers]

request!! >> (fandom : degrees of lewdity, Alex)

🧸- im sooooo sorry if this is ooc help??? sorry dol fandom

w: feminization & feminine dressing (alex), sub/bot alex & dom/top reader, reader referred to as [name], a little ooc???, somnophilia maybe..?, HORRIBLE transition into sex, oral/bj, reader calls alex a girl likeee once, gay sex (real)

minors dni <3

a pink, frilled skirt, socks that hugged his plump thighs perfectly.. this was perfect, alex thought. he adjusted his red fringe, admiring himself in the view of the camera he held.

a few hours prior, his boyfriend came home from work. after greeting him, name went on his way to rest on a chair in the living room. alex had been in his room since, to surprise him with a little video.

he puts the camera lower to avoid showing his face, and starts recording. he paces towards his resting boyfriend, showing his body on camera.

his shirt was all messy, barely tucked in. the buttons near his neck are undone, and his legs were in a man spread. alex smiled behind the camera, but upon further inspection of his partner's clothes, he seemed to notice something else.

something bulging for attention under his pants. alex, who was visibly surprised, stopped filming. he puts his phone in his other hand, before slowly coming closer to him.

a little peek won't hurt.. will it?

the room was unbearably silent for alex as he unbuckled name's pants as slow as possible to avoid waking him.

successfully getting rid of the belt, alex puts it on the floor. he puts his hands to work on name's pants, pulling it off his legs to reveal the very thing he's been searching for.

it practically jumps out of [name]'s underwear, eager, and awaiting for any form of stimulation. alex found himself staring at it, his mind blanked.

alex wraps his hand around his length, as he licked his lips in anticipation. [name] would love it if he helped him out, he wouldn't mind, he thought.

he slowly strokes his boyfriend's throbbing member, all the while keeping a tight and firm grasp around it. his fingers glide over the slit on it's head, from the veins, to the base.

alex was snapped out of his trance, suddenly stopping when name groaned, and stirred in his sleep. he repositions to get comfortable, and only continues when he goes quiet again.

"..hope you're dreamin' bout me right now.." he mutters, just as he decided that he was ready for it, he took [name]'s dick into his mouth. bobbing his head at the pace of his hands.

he loved the way it tasted, the way he'd take it into his mouth n the strange, but welcomed flavor would invade his tongue. the way the veins of [name]'s member would brush against his tongue while he'd suck.

alex was distracted by his own focus on [name]'s dick, he didn't even notice his boyfriend woke up already..!

[name] put a hand on alex's red hair, rubbing it affectionately. "this's a surprise.." his voice and touch made alex's heart almost jump. alex raised his head, his mouth parting from name's cock.

" 'm sorry, I--" he tried to make up some excuse, though [name] promptly shuts his lip with a finger to his mouth. "hey.. I didn't tell you to stop, did I? you can keep goin'.. if you want."

alex was surprised, but.. it's not like [name] would deny him,, " 'kay.." he muttered in response, as his mouth hovers right above [name]'s member, about to take it back in his mouth..!

[name] let out a pleasured sigh, feeling alex's warm cavern wrapping around him. his hand raised to cover his mouth,, just as the other kept itself knotted in the redhead's hair.

only two sounds could be heard throughout the room. [name]'s pleasure-filled groans, as well as the sounds his boyfriend made as he kept sucking on his cock,

"mmh.. a-agh, good girl, suckin' me so well.." he whispers, in a husky tone. his view of alex bobbing his head, sometimes taking it so far to make his entire length disappear within his mouth. It aroused him further,

"c-cummin', honey.. I'm cumming!" [name] was itching towards his own release, tangling his hands onto alex's hair as he thrusts his hips into his face whilst he moans out loud.

alex didn't seem objected to it either, if anything, his hands were gripping around [name]'s inner thighs. the thrill of his boyfriend's seed filling his mouth-- claiming his throat as his, it was something he was waiting for this entire time.

[name]'s hands gripped onto alex's hair, locking him in place. he shot his load inside his mouth, "ah.. ah," [name] pants, as alex's cheeks filled with ropes of his warm cum, then swallowed it all up.

[name] gulps, feeling alex's still expectant gaze land on him again.

"..fuck, maybe we should go for another round."

[plaidos]

Sorry if I'm speaking out of turn but I've also noticed a real slight of hand whenever transmisogynists say "trans women and trans men should stop arguing about who has it worse and instead [graphic sex description]" because the implication is that trans people must agree that all of them are harmed equally even though that's demonstrably untrue. But as far as I can tell it's a real fringe opinion even among those TMRAs that transmascs actually have it worse than transfems (I'm sure some of them do say that though), when most of the harassment actually comes from people who insist that trans men and women are equal. Especially when that sentiment is overwhelmingly paired with sexual harassment. It's straight out of the centrists playbook. It's giving "I'm not a feminist or an MRA, I'm an egalitarian"

it’s literally the same exact thing. most of them don’t wanna say men are more oppressed because it’s obviously not true, so they reflexively lean back on what most of the Non-MRA antifeminist men have been saying the whole time: “feminism is pointless because men and women are already equal”. except trans women don’t feel like we’re equal to trans men even within the trans community, and the overwhelming response has been “you’re delusional and tearing the community apart” rather than “wow, i can’t believe so many trans women feel this way, maybe something needs to change?”. it’s heartbreaking to be honest.

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

[doctorguilty]

It really jumps out how much bladical bleminism is repackaged Christian conservatism straight out of my teen years. I remember being 15 and being like "I want a tattoo someday" and all the response was "don't defile your body, you are God's creation you must respect being made in his image, if you defile yourself no man will ever want you as a wife because you are impure and ugly."

Now it's just like "I'm considering top surgery" and blerfs go "why would you mutilate your body, you must learn to love having a woman's body, true female liberation is the shameless embrace of being a beautiful, fertile woman, your pure womb and intact breasts are the givers of all life #feminism #womensrights #pr*life #tr*dwife" and this is why it's important to remember the venn diagram of white supremacists and bladblems is a big fat overlap, and if you're a marginalized person on the fringes somewhere you have been bamboozled, unfortunately

This is ALSO why you do not engage in debates and arguments with them, if you believe in silencing white supremacists and nazis and so on, you HAVE to silence ra/df/ems, you cannot give a shred of validation to their beliefs by engaging, like they're something different, just some harmless idiots online, they are THE SAME, their ideologies are rooted in all the same soil

[paperlunamoth]

Seeing the interactions between the trans movement and radical feminism from both sides has really opened my eyes to just how severe of a problem misogyny continues to be.

"Terfs" are objectively less of a threat to trans people in every way than conservatives.

Conservatives are overwhelmingly larger in numbers. Radical feminists are a minority of a minority.

Conservatives have overwhelmingly more public support. Conservative views are mainstream, radical feminist views are fringe.

Conservatives have overwhelmingly more political power. I am not aware of a single person in a position of real political power who is openly a radical feminist. Meanwhile, depending on the country, a significant portion to the vast majority of those in positions of political power are conservatives.

Conservatives are more hostile to trans people by default. They genuinely and truly want trans people to suffer. Radical feminists just take issue with the philosophical views being promoted by the trans movement.

And yet, and yet, it is the feminists who are receiving death threats, rape threats, being doxxed, being stalked, being assaulted, having our spaces vandalized, being told to kill ourselves, being inundated with disgustingly misogynistic language, and otherwise harrassed with fervor and en masse. Despite the fact that even if it was true (which it absolutely is NOT) that every single radical feminist wanted all trans people to be murdered, it wouldn't fucking matter. We have no meaningful power. We are not accepted within larger political movements. We are not in charge of the government of any country. Our voice is essentially nonexistent both within our local communities and on the world stage.

And yet, it is this group that happens to be made up exclusively of women that is seen as deserving of more hatred, more vitriol, more hostility, more vile and sadistic behavior than the group that is objectively and inarguably a greater threat to trans rights and trans lives. That tells us all that we need to know.

[crinolinecuriousity]

so glad to know that weird girl culture is alive and well every year when I see the Stuck at Prom gallery... here are some faves from this year’s gallery, all of which were not finalists. 

view the whole gallery and vote for the winners here!

Lizbeth -  there were a handful of outfits that were inspired by cultures but this one was one of my favorites, a love the color scheme, the fringe, and the bow, I think she did a very good job and I could genuinely see someone wearing this on the runway!

Elizabeth - really liked her colors, which she said was inspired by a peacock at her house I think? but what stuck out to me was the gradient on the edge of her skirt and the straps

Presley - I can definitely see why she wasn’t a finalist but she also looks gorgeous, I think it’s hard to pull off a mostly solid red dress and she genuinely looks like a Disney princess

Jadyn - genuinely cannot believe she was not a finalist. like the first picture literally does not look like duct tape, you could tell me it was a fabric costume on Broadway and I would believe you.

Catrielle - another one I can’t believe wasn’t a finalist! there are always a handful of outfits that use gold but I love what she did with it. plus the shoes and the bag?? love love love

Ava - I could LITERALLY see this at the Met Gala red carpet. the detailing is insane and the skirt came out looking really nice and even. she looks gorgeous!

Ritika - there were a couple of circle skirts but this was one of my favorites. her theme of harmony seemed relevant with a lot of the current events going on as well - the skirt is colorful but isn’t distracting and I think it’s a more elaborate dress that actually manages to pull off the busier look

Veronica - I DEFINITELY think she should have been a finalist for suits. like I think this outfit is more compelling and has a cooler background (Filipina culture) than like. the white(?) guy who just made a samurai suit. I really love how she like... feminized the suit jacket if that makes sense? I think she slayed it

Madyson - this one was so fun to look at! I love the manta ray bag and the sand dollar earrings too, I would love to see a fabric rendition of this dress. you can tell she had a lot of fun making it from the pictures, too.

Eliza - this one was inspired by a Shakespeare line if I remember correctly and it really reminds me of old 80s/90s catalogues. was really impressed by the puffed sleeves!

Owen - there’s always more dresses than suits entered since most of the competitors are girls. this was a suit that was inspired by the AIDS crisis quilts, I think he should have been a finalist and he looks more put together than some of the suit finalists

Kendyl - this one was insane to me - she looks gorgeous and I could see this being a real fabric prom dress or a dress a celeb wears on the red carpet. I can’t get past the detailing and the ruffles?? insanely talented

Lily - personally I think this suit would have looked better without the rectangles on the pant legs but that being said, I love this outfit so much, you can tell what she drew inspiration from and I think it’s simple but classy and it works beautifully. I could see this on the runway!

[racefortheironthrone]

Maybe this is too broad, but wondering if there's a better term than "conspiracy theorist" to describe some large figures in the ongoing national discourse? Not that "fluoride in the drinking crowd" were serious thinkers or total harmless, but am I alone is finding "conspiracy theory" too quaint and mild to describe how mainstream rather fringe these things are and also how totally evidence-free and something just plain dumb they can also be?

I don’t think conspiracy theories have ever been quaint and mild.

Think about the history of antisemitism from medieval blood libels to 19th century theories of Jewish financial cabals to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” dreamed up by Tsarist agents-provocateur that took the theory global and spawned untold numbers of imitators, to Hitler’s invention of “Judeo-Bolshevism” that married traditional antisemitism to anti-Communism and nationalist populism. Conspiracy theories one and all, but fully capable of spawning pogroms and fascist dictatorships.

Likewise, we think of Anti-Masonic or Illuminati conspiracy theories as self-evidently ridiculous and harmless, but we forget that they were used by cultural conservatives in church and state to wage culture wars on the Enlightenment, liberalism, secularism, democracy, every revolution from America to France to 1848 and beyond, feminism and almost every social movement of the 18th and 19th century. People died or were surveilled or were sent to prison, political parties were formed or banned, and conservatism itself was founded in the name of “poisoning the minds of the lower orders” to inoculate them from the influence of secret societies.

As Dan Olsen has shown, even seemingly benign conspiracy theories like the JFK assassination cover-up or the Moon landing was faked or the earth is flat can hide much more malign motivations, just waiting for the opportunity to radicalize and proselytize: