#hashtag lesbian troll!!!

[insanemanliker69]

yall i got to act 5 😭😭😭😭

[budgies-in-blue]

Introgs a useless lesbian.

[johnrossbowie]

LEAVING TWITTER

I wrote this earlier in the fall, before the election, after dissolving my Twitter account. I wasn’t sure where to put it (“try up your ass!” – someone, I’m sure) and then I remembered I have a tumblr I never use. Anyway, here tis.

How do you shame someone who thinks Trumps’ half-baked policies and quarter-baked messaging put him in the pantheon of great Presidents? How do you shame someone so lacking in introspection that they will call Obama arrogant while praising Trump’s decisiveness and yet at the same time vehemently deny that they’re racist? How do you shame someone for whom that racism is endearing and maybe long overdue?

You don’t. It’s silly to think otherwise.

Twitter is an addiction of mine, and true to form, my dependence on it grew more serious after I quit drinking in 2010. At first it was a chance to mouth off, make jokes both stupid and erudite and occasionally stick my foot in my mouth (I owe New Yorker writer Tad Friend an apology. He knows why, or (God willing) he’s forgotten. Either way. Sorry.) I blew off steam, steam that was accumulating without booze to dampen the flames. Not always constructive venting, but I also met new friends, and connected with people whose work I’ve admired for literal decades and ended up seeing plays with Lin-Manuel Miranda and hanging backstage with Jane Wiedlin after a Go-Go’s show and exchanging sober thoughts with Mike Doughty. When my mom passed in 2018, a lot of people reached out to tell me they were thinking of me. This was nice. For a while, Twitter was a huge help when I needed it.

I used to hate going to parties and really hated dancing and mingling, but a couple of drinks would fix that. Point is, for a while, booze was a huge help, too.

But my engagement with Twitter changed, and I started calling people my ‘friends’ even though I’d never once met them or even heard their voices. These weren’t even penpals, these were people whose jokes or stances I enjoyed, so with Arthurian benevolence I clicked on a little heart icon, liked their tweet, and assumed therefore that we had signed some sort of blood oath.

We had not. I got glib, and cheap, and a little lazy. And then to make matters much worse, Trump came along and extended his reach with the medium.

There was a while there where I thought I could be a sort of voice for the voiceless, and I thought I was doing that. I tried very hard to only contribute things that I felt were not being said – It wasn’t accomplishing anything to notice “Haha Trump looks like he’s bullshitting his way through an oral report” – such things were self-evident. I tried to point out very specific inconsistencies in his policies, like the Muslim ban meant to curb terrorism that still favored the country that brought forth 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. Like his full-throated cries against media bias performed while he suckled at Roger Ailes’ wrinkly teat.  Like his fondness for evangelical votes that coincided with a scriptural knowledge that lagged far behind mine, even though I’m a lapsed Episcopalian, and there is no one less religiously observant than a lapsed Episcopalian. But that eventually gave way to unleashing ad hominem attacks against his higher profile supporters, who I felt weren’t being questioned enough, who I felt were in turn being fawned over by theirdim supporters. If you’re one of these guys, and you think I’m talking about you, you’re probably right, but don’t mistake this for an apology. You suck, and you support someone who sucks, and your idolatry is hurting our country and its standing in the world. Fuck you entirely, but that’s not the point. The point is that me screaming into the toilet of Twitter helps no one – it doesn’t help a family stuck at the border because they’re trying to secure a better life for their kids. It doesn’t help a poor teenager who can’t get an abortion because the party of ‘small government’ has squeezed their tiny jurisdiction into her uterus. It doesn’t help the coal miner who’s staking all his hopes on a dying industry and a President’s empty promises to resurrect it. I was born in New York City, and I currently live in Los Angeles. Those are the only two places I’ve ever lived, if you don’t count the 4 years I spent in Ithaca[1]. So, yes, I live in a liberal bubble, and while I’ve driven across the country a couple of times and did a few weeks in a touring band and am as crushed as any heartlander about the demise of Waffle House, you have me dead to rights if you call me a coastal elitist. And with that in mind, I offer few surprises. A guy who grew up in the theater district and was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage or felt you should own an AR-15? THAT would be newsworthy. I am not newsworthy. I can preach to the choir, I can confirm people’s biases, but I will likely not sway anyone who is eager to dismiss a Native New Yorker who lives in Hollywood. I grew up in the New York of the 1970s, and that part of my identity did shape my politics. My mom’s boss was gay and the Son of Sam posed a realistic threat. As such, gays are job creators[2] and guns are used for homicide much more often than they are used for self-defense[3]. I have found this to be generally true over the years, and there’s even data to back it up.

“But Mr. Bowie,” you might say, though I insist you call me John - “those studies are conducted by elitist institutions and those institutions suck!” And again, I am not going to reason with people who will dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view as elitist or, God Help Us, fake news. But the studies above are peer-reviewed, convincing, and there are more where those came from.

“But John,” you might say, and I am soothed that we’re one a first name basis - “Can’t you just stay on Twitter for the jokes?” Ugh. A) apparently not and B) the jokes are few and far between, and I am 100% part of that problem.

I have stuff to offer, but Twitter is not the place from which to offer it.

After years of academically understanding that Twitter is not the real world, Super Tuesday 2020 made the abstract pretty fucking concrete. If you had looked at my feed on the Monday beforehand – my feed which is admittedly curated towards the left, but not monolithic (Hi, Rich Lowry!) – you’d have felt that a solid Bernie surge was imminent, but also that your candidate was going surprise her more vocal critics. When the Biden sweep swept, when Bernie was diminished and when Warren was defeated, I realized that Twitter is not only not the real world, it’s almost some sort of Phillip K. Dickian alternate timeline, untethered to anything we’re actually experiencing in our day to day life. This is both good news and bad news – one, we’re not heading towards a utopia of single payer health care and the eradication of American medical debt any time soon, but two, we’re also not being increasingly governed by diaper-clad jungen like Charlie Kirk. Clouds and their linings. Leaving Twitter may look like ceding ground to the assclowns but get this – the ground. Is not. There.

It’s just air.

There are tangible things I can do with my time - volunteer with a local organization called Food On Foot, who provide food and job training for people experiencing homelessness here in my adopted Los Angeles. I can give money to candidates and causes I support, and I can occasionally even drop by social media to boost a project or an issue and then vanish, like a sort of Caucasian Zorro who doesn’t read his mentions. I can also model good behavior for my kids (ages 10 and 13) who don’t need to see their father glued to his phone, arguing about Trumps incompetence with Constitutional scholars who have a misspelled Bible verse in their bio (three s’ in Ecclesiastes, folks).

So farewell Twitter. I’ll miss a lot of you. Perhaps not as badly as I miss Simon Maloy and Roger Ebert and Harris Wittels and others whose deaths created an unfillable void on the platform. But I won’t miss the yelling, and the lionization of poor grammar, and anonymous trolls telling my Jewish friends that they were gonna leave the country “via chimney.” I will not miss people who think Trump is a stable genius calling me a “fucktard.” I will not miss transphobia or cancelling but I will miss hashtag games, particularly my stellar work during #mypunkmusical (Probably should have quit after that surge, I was on fire that night, real blaze of glory stuff I mean, Christ, Sunday in the Park with the Germs? Husker Du I Hear A Waltz? Fiddler on the Roof (keeping an eye out for the cops)? These are Pulitzer contenders.). Twitter makes me feel lousy, even when I’m right, and I’m often right. There’s just no point in barking bumperstickers at each other, and there are people who are speaking truth to power and doing a cleaner job of it – Aaron Rupar, Steven Pasquale, Louise Mensch, Imani Gandy and Ijeoma Oluo to name five solid mostly politically based accounts (Yes, Pasquale is a Broadway tenor. He’s also a tenacious lefty with good points and research and a dreamy voice. You think you’re straight and then you hear him sing anything from Bridges of Madison County and you want him to spoon you.). You’re probably already following those mentioned, but on the off chance you’re not, get to it. You’ll thank me, but you won’t be able to unless you actually have my email.

_______

[1] And Jesus, that’s worse – Ithaca is such a lefty enclave that they had an actual socialist mayor FOR WHOM I VOTED while I was there. And not socialist the way some people think all Democrats are socialist – I mean Ben Nichols actually ran on the socialist ticket and was re-elected twice for a total of six years.

[2] The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, “America’s LGBT Economy” Jan 20th, 2017

[3] The Violence Policy Institute, Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self Defense Gun Use, July 2019.

[buddha-in-disguise]

You are not a fan!

I've decided to post as more and more hate is popping in recent weeks. This hate has emerged from a certain area of fandom towards others. This post is directly to all Sanvers fans.

For those who are doing this (& please before anyone says we can’t be sure it is Sanvers fans, I know in this instance this is repeated pattern that is identical to past behaviour, it might not be every instance but I know quite a lot is. The patterns cannot be dismissed).

So I am directing this to those who know who is behind this (because some of you will know).

I’m also directing it to other Sanvers fans - not because you might have done anything wrong, but to a) be aware this is supposedly happening in your name & b) to please ensure if you see or know of anyone who might be involved, call them out if you don’t already, c) I see hashtags supporting the fandom all over the place for all kinds of events. Use that hashtag to call these people out with the same passion, so others see it, because right now we don’t. Hashtag into other fandoms as well if you can.

Alternatively do what many others do regardless of which ship they support, go into the timelines (of cast & fans) to show you are appalled by this behaviour. I know not all fans of every ship do this, but I see it far more often with other ships than I have ever done with Sanvers fans. That cross fandom support goes a hell of a long way. Don’t drag in old previous arguments you might’ve witnessed or been involved in, because that helps no-one. Yes it’s happened in the past, but this is about the here and now. Step up regardless to show you are there. But even if you can’t do that with fans, rather than continually going into cast or crew or the network timelines and repeating that you want Sanvers back, show support against bullying or support to the actress. Believe it or not, you can still show support towards an actress against hate, and give your message about wanting your own ship still in the same tweet!

If you say it’s too hard mentally to face doing that - ask someone you know who can. You cannot tell me in all those out of your fandom who might not be able to face it, there aren’t those who are in a position to do it for you. Be proactive.

For those Sanvers fans who are behind this; you had a character and ship that I fully understand was something you not only got attached to, but validated who you are as a person. Whose journey might’ve represented your own. Who might’ve given you strength to come out, or be more open to those around you.

Emotional attachment in itself is okay and no-one should invalidate that or tell you to move on, even if the ship or characters have changed and the show has moved on.

What isn’t okay is when the attachment causes such anger, such bitterness, you use it against other fans, cast members or anyone else for that matter.

To all fans, regardless of Fandom: No-one else deserves to bear the brunt of how you react or feel, no-one. That is your responsibility. Own it. If you can’t own it, then you need serious medical help or therapy, because this is not normal. Also don’t use your mental health as an excuse. All too often it is used as why you feel like you do, but then take no remedial steps to at least try to help yourself.

I’ve been there with mental health. I’m 53 - my first full blown panic attack was when I had just turned 12. I still remember it so clearly, and it wasn’t until I was 26 before someone said to me what it was. It took another full decade to get it under some semblance of control. That didn’t mean I wasn’t seeking professional help and medication - I was - but far less was recognised about it then. I say this because even though I’ve pretty much conquered it via a number of different ways - ultimately I am the one who has to take that first healing step forward. I recognise it is a hellish place to be at times. I have full empathy for all who suffer. But don’t use it as an excuse. It actually doesn’t help the mental health stigmas.

You also cannot continue to have others demand they support canon lesbian representation, when by the same token you’re tearing down other canon lesbian representation. Stay. In. Your. Lane. I’ve repeated this so much, and yes that goes both ways - if any fans from other fandoms feel a need to go in on Sanvers fans - don’t! I also keep saying representation comes in far greater areas than you might see or recognise. Don’t demean what someone else sees, even if you can’t. You might feel it’s shit representation, others might see it as being great representation. We all view things from different perspectives. Don’t place your bias on others.

Now, this issue on sending this all via anon. It really isn’t as anon as you might think it is. Legally there could be serious implications for your actions. In real life and online, your actions have possible consequences beyond a tweet being deleted or sent behind a troll alt account, or anonymously. Being anonymous isn’t actually as anonymous as you might think. This also goes beyond just death threats (or wishing physical harm on someone), if you continue to attack or misrepresent someone online. One prime example is insisting some of us have multiple alt accounts and use them to troll the fandom. I saw this happening recently, when a user who had *nothing* to do with a fan account was accused of running it. When they (& the person on the account) said otherwise, it made no difference. That could in some instances be seen as defamation. It might also be seen as libel (as it’s written, whereas slander is verbal). Would it ever come to that? I don’t know, but it can’t be discounted as a possibility.

If you’re that convinced they have all these accounts, or all this influence, when others are saying otherwise & you refuse to believe them, that is now paranoia. Again, that is not normal or rational behaviour.

In the meantime, here is a screenshot of the latest death threat. It is heavily edited as the person who recieved it wanted to delete off her timeline. I will add this isn’t the first threat of it's kind against fans. I’ve faced it, so have friends of ours. We’ve faced threats of physical violence as well. Some from known accounts before it all started to slide towards anonymous ones. So yes, as I’ve said, this is a pattern of behaviour.

I will say lastly - I know not all Sanvers fans are like this. I know there are those who are as appalled and upset. Please use your voice to stand up to this in all areas, not just in the enclosed space of your fandom.

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

Pride Month ficlet: Mary had been searching for "the right one" in all the boys at Arcadia Oaks High and then some. She hadn't expected the right one to be the girl who sat next to her in her junior year math class. (Could be any f/f ship involving Mary)

The Art of Romance

Romance was an art.  One Mary Wang thought she’d mastered before she was even seventeen.  Though her birthday was in a few weeks, so she knew she needed to get a boyfriend again so he could properly romance her and give her gifts and everything.  Gifts from friends were fine and all, and she’d definitely celebrate with Darci and Claire.  Well, Darci now that Claire was headed across the country on what could only be the romantic getaway of a lifetime.  What Mary would give to get do something like that.  Travel without parents.  Without school or homework.  With someone she loved, like Claire, who…

Wait.  What was her train of thought again?  Oh, right.  Birthday.  Romance.  Mary doodled a trio of hearts in the corner of her math notebook.  Miss Janeth’s class was so boring.  Even after the “Secret Troll Apocalypse (That You Cannot Boast You Witnessed On Social Media, a Novel By Toby Domzalski)” and learning that her over-dramatic teacher could kick ass, math class was just so meh.  Like all of Miss Janeth’s awesomeness had been used during the troll apocalypse and now that things were getting back to normal, she’d gone back to her boring, old Math Teacher Template.  Seriously lady.  Would it hurt to permanently upgrade to something fresh and at least somewhat cool?  

Not that teachers could be cool.  They were teachers.  But still.  Mr. Strickler had at least gone from “Boring History Teacher Turned Principal Who Mysteriously Disappeared” to “Avocado Troll Teacher Who Runs Around In A Skirt Thing”, which had honestly been fun because Mary got to start an entire movement against him she called, “Put On Some Clothes, You Are Traumatizing The Children” with its own hashtag on the online Arcadia High Post-Weirdness Message Board (that she’d created and was an admin for—if she wasn’t allowed to talk on Twitter about Arcadia’s recent weird shit, well, she’d just find/create a place where she could) and everything.  Dude deserved the shade everyone had subsequently thrown at him through the ensuing week.  That’s what you get for criticizing girls for not wearing proper school attire, and then turning around and revealing yourself as a troll who runs around half naked.

The world was still learning there was no force more powerful than Mary Wang and her phone.

“Pssst!  Mary!”

Mary sighed.  “What is it, Shannon?”  She’d been in the middle of an internal monologue and so not interested in returning to the real world because that meant remembering she was in math class.  Oh and also she was in The Zone and her twenty-fifth doodled heart had almost come out completely perfect except now it was ruined forever.

Shannon jerked her head toward the front of the classroom.  Mary looked in that direction.  Miss Janeth was looking directly at her expectantly.  Too expectantly.

“Ms. Wang, we don’t have all day.  Please come to the board and show the class how you would answer this equation.”

Oh, shit.

Mary slid out of her desk.  Bit her tongue so a curse word wouldn’t slip out and she’d get in even more trouble.

As she passed Shannon’s desk, the other girl pressed a small piece of paper in her hand.  Mary managed to hide it and sneak a glance without Miss Janeth noticing.  On the paper was a mess of numbers and equations.  Something that, for anyone else, would be super hard to read, but she and Shannon had been passing notes since, well, since they first met freshman year.  Mary smiled.  So, answering the equation on the board wouldn’t be so hard after all.

“Darci, it’s not that simple.  It’s really not.  I have dated almost every single eligible guy at school and even a few forbidden fruit guys from the academy.  All the good ones, you know, except freaking Steve.  I can’t just pick a new one randomly.  Especially cause it’s my birthday.  These things take time.  Planning.”  Mary rolled her eyes and took a long sip from the orange juice bottle she’d packed in her lunch.

Dating guys was an art.  It took finesse.  Not that Darci could really understand that.  She’d gone for the first sweet guy to look her way.  Not that was a bad, if you liked that sort of thing.  Anyway, from her observations, Mary had decided Toby was worthy of dating her friend (even if he continued to perpetually frustrate her for being adamant about keeping the troll apocalypse a secret from her Twitter following).

“What about Eli?”  Shannon piped up.  “He’s nice.”

Mary wrapped an arm around the other girl’s shoulder.  ��Not boyfriend material, Shan.”  Better put an end to that thought train before it went anywhere.  Shannon was nice.  Kind.  Good traits to have.  Except, of course, in high school.  Or when considering the art of dating.  “Let me tell you something about guys…”

Look, the point was, Mary knew everything there was to know about dating.  And she knew that every boy at their school, absolutely 100% all of them, were not worth Shannon’s time.  Shannon was smart.  A bit of a bookworm, but honestly there was nothing really wrong about that.  She was kind of cute when she started talking about something particularly interesting she’d read.  Especially when she came up with a pun or a joke and would laugh.  Her nose did this adorable crinkle thing and…

Anyway, they made the best team.  Shannon had the book smarts.  Mary, the street smarts.  Together, they were unstoppable at whatever they put their minds to.  It may have been Mary who got the campaign against Mr. Strickler’s troll attire started, but it was Shannon who really got it rolling and organized with the student body.

Why put a boy between that pure awesome sauce-ness?

Great, now Domzalski was rubbing off on her.

“Hey Mary, um can I talk to you for a second?  Privately?”  Shannon was looking at her and it occurred to Mary she’d gone monologuing in her head again.  Had any of that made it out into her external monologue to Shannon.  Crap.  Should she risk asking?  Is that why she wanted to talk privately?

Crap.  Crap.  Crap.

Mary followed Shannon over to an empty corner of Arcadia High’s yard.

“So, what do you want to talk about?”  Play it cool.  Play it cool.  Play it cool.  Mary’s brain reminded herself over and over again.

“Nothing bad, really.”  Shannon offered her a sheepish smile.  “It’s just…um…can you maybe not give me advice on how to date boys?  Like I get that you’re trying to be helpful and stuff but…it’s just…”  Shannon took a massive breath and exhaled it.  “I’m a lesbian.”  She looked Mary directly in the eye when she spoke.  “I…I like girls.  So I don’t really need advice on guys?”

“Oh, ok.”  Mary’s brain panicked.  Wait.  Why was it panicking?  It was totally fine that Shannon liked girls.  Mary herself had two dads.  She’d grown up knowing that Gayness Was A Thing.  It was fine.  Everything is fine.  “Cool.  Great.  I’ll remember that.  No more guy advice.”  Mary reassured Shannon, who breathed out in relief.

By Miss Janeth’s class the next day, Mary was still mulling over the Shannon Is A Lesbian thing.  Her brain wouldn’t let it go.  Or rather, she’d sort of realized she had this feeling.  This indescribable, kinda exhilarating feeling.

If Shannon was a lesbian, and she was.  That meant, that meant that girls could potentially date her.

And Mary was a girl.

Ok, a girl who had never really considered dating other girls before.  It was fun, after all, to be romanced by a guy (although most weren’t exactly great kissers, but whatever, she needed to get practice somehow).  But still, she was now in the category of Potential People Shannon Can Date.

Except did she want to date Shannon?  And would Shannon want to date her?  Mary hadn’t always been the nicest.  The time that she snapped at Shannon while they were both serving Saturday Detention came to mind.  Did Shannon remember that?  But wait, Mary had apologized for that, and for other stuff, when they started to hang out together a lot more after that day.  And they’d always been sort of friends since freshman year.  But for a good chunk of that time Mary hadn’t really taken Shannon seriously.  But they’d still been friends, hadn’t they?  So they could theoretically get along.

But could they get along like that?

Wait, why was she even considering this?  The entire plan had been to find a new guy to date so he could romance her for her birthday and stuff.  She didn’t even like girls.  Right?  Ok, again, she’d never thought about it in great detail.  Dating was something fun you did with whatever guy caught your attention.  But then that wasn’t the only way to date, was it?  So…

Mary’s mind went deeper and deeper into the idea all through math class.  She didn’t learn much that day, as her fresh notebook page was instead full of ideas and thoughts for something far, far more important.

The next day was the first day Mary had ever arrived early to math class, but she needed to get there before anyone else did (and that included Miss Janeth).  Quickly, before anyone could enter the room and catch her, Mary took out a small but well thought-out bouquet of flowers (yellow daffodils, vibrant orangey-red tulips, and, of course, a few red roses—all favorites of Shannon) and a card with a heartfelt poem she’d found online last night.

Mary had never really done the courting part of romance before.  But, in this instance, she definitely wanted to try.  Shannon deserved the very best and Mary, after all, was the Dating Expert (even if she was new to the whole romancing girls part).

After placing down her gifts on Shannon’s desk as carefully as humanely possible, Mary exited the classroom.  This way she could come in with everyone else, get to see Shannon’s surprise and her search around to see who her mysterious admirer was.  Mary wouldn’t tell her right then, in front of everyone (that would be really rude since Shannon wasn’t out to too many it didn’t seem like).  But since everyone also knew she, Mary, was the school’s Romance Expert, it would totally make sense for her to be the one to pull Shannon aside and give her “advice” on what to do (here “advice” meant reveal that the gift had come from her and maybe ask her out).  No one would suspect a thing.  It was the ultimate Romantic Move, made even better by the fact that it would be Mary doing it.

In hindsight, Mary should have considered potential disasters a bit more.

Steve and Eli were making some sort of disturbance out in the hall, which was strange because they’d been getting along recently (also since Steve cleaned up his whole bully act and started to make amends with people).  So everyone was gathered in a crowd and it delayed class.

Then, after breaking up the scene, Miss Janeth started class immediately as everyone filed into the math room.  So, even though Mary got to see Shannon’s eyes widen with surprise at her gift, she couldn’t really talk to her at all about it, and everything now sucked forever.

It was even worse when Mary noticed that, on her own desk, a “Secret Admirer” had put a cute little plushy teddy bear holding a deep violet rose (her ultimate favorite) and a calligraphed card asking her to meet by the soccer field after school.

Great, now some guy was trying to romance her while she was trying to romance Shannon.  Didn’t the universe know she’d made up her mind about the whole “who I’m dating” thing?  Guys were nice and whatever, but they weren’t Shannon.

Drama was so much more fun when it was about someone else.

Mary paced around in front of the goalie box at the end of the field.  Why wouldn’t the guy arrive already?  The sooner he arrived, the sooner she could turn him down, the sooner she could figure out her next step in trying to romance Shannon.  She needed to explain about the gift before someone else took all the credit and—

“Hi, Mary.”

Mary jumped.  Landed awkwardly.  Nearly fell over, but Shannon helped her catch her balance.

“Oh, um, hi.  Hi, Shannon.  What are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be going home or something.”  Oh wait, it was Thursday,  Shannon had Book Club, so of course she’d still be here.  “Or in the library or…” Mary’s brain refused to slow down.  Why did it always have to get nervously excited around Shannon now.  Why, brain, why?

Shannon looked nervous herself.  “I, um, I asked you to meet me here?  In the card?  The gift in Miss Janeth’s class—”

“THAT WAS FROM ME, IF SOMEONE ELSE TOLD YOU OTHERWISE THEY’RE LYING!”  Mary slapped her hands over her mouth.  Classy.  Real classy.  “I…did you like it?  The flowers?”

“…yes.”  Shannon took the flowers out from the pocket of her backpack where she’d carefully stored them.  “These were from you?”

Mary could feel the blush burning her cheeks.  “Yes.  I…I, um, well, I…you’re really cute when you scrunch up your nose when you laugh at something funny and, um, I like you.  Like, like like you I think.  Not the friend like.  The other kind of like.  You know, like like.”  She took a deep breath.  This was stupid.  Why was she so awkward?  She was the Dating Expert.  She should be suave.  Sure of herself.  She’d never felt like this around any of the guys.  Finally something else dawned on Mary.  “Wait.  If those weren’t what you’re were talking about, then what…?”

Now, it was Shannon’s turn to blush awkwardly, which was oddly reassuring.  At least neither of them were being super great about this.  “I sorta got that teddy bear and the rose for you?  Cause I’ve sorta had the biggest crush on you since, well, for a while.  And I figured now that you know I like girls, I could maybe see if you wanted to go out?  But I was super nervous so I asked Steve and Eli to cause a distraction so I could sneak in and leave them for you.”  Shannon looked down at her hands and then back up at Mary.  “So, do you?  Want to go out with me, I mean?  It’s ok if you don’t want to, I get it.  I—”

“YES!”  Mary jumped.  Then laughed.  She’d given up all hope of being cool and she didn’t care who saw her honestly.  Even if none of this had gone according to her plan, it was still what she wanted.  She took a deep breath to collect herself.  “I would like that, like a lot.”  She bit her lip.  “But I don’t really know what I am yet.  I just figured out that I like you and I want to go out with you.  Like a lot.  But also there were all the guys, so I don’t know if I’m a lesbian or not yet.”

“That’s ok.”  Shannon smiled at her.  “You have time to figure you out.  Or we could figure it out together, if you’d like?”

“I’d like that too.”  Mary wrapped an arm around Shannon’s shoulders.  “So I know a great cafe we could go to or we could see what movies are playing?  That is, if you’re ok with missing Book Club?”  She stopped.  “Or we could go to your Book Club?”  Sure her reputation may take a hit going someplace so nerdy but whatever, there were more important things.

“I’ll be happy so long as we do whatever, we do together.”

That was the best thing Mary had heard all day.  The rest of the afternoon, and the future, was ahead of them and they could spend it having as much fun as they wanted.  Together.

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

Bride Hits Back at Fat-Shaming Trolls: ‘I Will Continue to Rise Above’

Bride claps back at body shamers. (Photo: Joy Thomas)

Joy Thomas is a plus-size model and vlogger who recently married the love of her life. Like many brides, she shared some gorgeous shots from her special day on social media. Friends and family were quick to comment, congratulating her and her new husband, Andre Thomas, a Christian EDM DJ.

However, sprinkled between affirmative hashtags such as #goals, #babes, and #powercouple, trolls chimed in as well with hateful opinions about her body. “Out of all the positive and beautiful responses we received, at one point the negative responses seemed to outweigh the positive ones,” Joy, who opted for a fitted stretch jersey dress paired with a pearl choker, tells Yahoo Style.

People rally-up and back up Thomas from shamers. (Photo: Instagram/@fat.nefertiti_)

Despite the fat shaming, Joy holds a, well, joyful outlook on the harassment.

“After realizing I can’t please everybody, and no matter what, they would’ve had something negative to say anyway, I’ve come to understand that they are unhappy with themselves,” she says. “Their standard of beauty is unrealistic. There are millions of beautiful women in the world who look just like me, and some people just hate to see that.”

One month down. Forever to go.

A post shared by Joy Thomas (@virtuous.joy) on Jul 30, 2017 at 2:14pm PDT

She adds, “The ignorant people that constantly troll and try to hurt my feelings won’t go anywhere, but I will continue to rise above them.”

This mighty attitude comes mostly from her personal faith and confidence, but also from her partner’s love. The pair, who are both from and currently reside in St. Louis, first connected through their many mutual acquaintances on Facebook, first developing a friendship with each other, which eventually grew into a romance.

Our Lord and Savior is so faithful!! Merry Christmas from my family to yours❤️ #futuremrs #bestchristmasever #myforever

A post shared by Joy Thomas (@virtuous.joy) on Dec 25, 2016 at 2:34pm PST

When Andre proposed in December, it was a total surprise for Joy. A video of the engagement was shared on YouTube and has been viewed more than 200,000 times.

You are the one whom my soul loves and cherishes. I'm grateful that you are constantly pressing towards Christ. Though this journey is not and will not be easy, I can't imagine walking along side this life with anyone else. I believe in you. I believe in us. I love you all ways, always. Happy Valentine's Day❤️

A post shared by Joy Thomas (@virtuous.joy) on Feb 14, 2017 at 6:29pm PST

Internet fame has given Joy thick skin. Her advice to other women who find themselves being shamed on social media? Ignore it. “I know it’s easier said than done, but you are so beautiful and you matter,” she says. “Forget what the negative people have to say. They’re watching you because it’s something about you that stands out from the others. Embrace your flaws, love ALL of you, and walk with your head high knowing you have a purpose.”

Most helpfully, though, she says, “The block button is very handy as well.”

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty: 

Christian YouTuber Exchanges Vows With His Bride and Her 4-Year-Old Daughter

How One Bride Upcycled 8 Relatives’ Wedding Gowns for Her Own Wedding

Couples Say Vows En Masse for Largest Lesbian Wedding

[thefirsthogokage]

@sluttybitchx I mean, if you have to ask, you clearly aren't paying attention. Or you're just a troll. The information is out there everywhere. Go look at they #TheySilencedYou, #TheySilencedUs, #TheySilencedThem hashtags on here and twitter. Or the #EndErasure and (#Fuck The CW) Hashtags.

If you don't understand how Chuck is the network, go look at meta on it.

Otherwise, some quick examples:

Riverdale: Sexualizes characters that are supposed to be minors. And no, it doesn't matter that they are played by legal adults because the are supposed to be minors. They also made canonically asexual Jughead Jones straight just because they felt he would experiment first when there is no evidence that happened in the comments. They use one of their queer characters just to be a love interest, and mis-casted her racially. They have another one get laid in the woods because he can't meet guys any other way. Their other queer character is just horrible. And they shoved Josie and the Pussycats to the side even though the girl who was playing Josie was supposed to be a main lead. Not to mention, Josie was actually supposed to get s spin off an be the star, and yet she got shoved to the side again in favor of a white lead.

They cancel their shows lead by BIPOC after no more than 5 seasons. Black Lightning got cancelled after four, much surprise by the ENTIRE crew who found out about it online. They also cancelled it after the promotion of a queer character to full cast member status.

Wayward Sisters - which was very well received - was scrapped. One of the central stories would have been a lesbian love story.

Supernatural: Oh god. So, so much. There is a hell of a lot of known things that were cut that were too gay or implied intimacy between Cas and Dean over several seasons of the show. MANY fans know about this (yet some contribute this to the writers when the writers don't cut scenes they think are important, certainly not WHEN THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN FILMED!). Some of the scenes were cut from the English version, but NOT from other countries. The killing off of queer characters Charlie and Crowley and cutting a scene in which we found out Charlie and Rowena had dated. And so, so much more. Not having Sam explicitly end up with Eileen who was disabled, and instead literally put a faceless character in her place.

Charmed 2018: Miscasting Latina characters, one with a light-skined black woman. And if I remembered right, they killed or wrote off AT LEAST two of the lesbian sister's love interests. One was mixed-Black and the other was Asian.

They regularly cast white actors instead of racially diverse actors. In fact, there was a roll on one show I know from an insider that was casted with a white woman who couldn't act instead of a darker woman who could. And their new Superman show was called out by a writer who got fired for making sexist jokes and for having the only POC on the cast be the bad guy, amount other things.

The 100: They killed off Alexa right after she and Clarke had sex. AKA killing your gays.

And there is so much more, and I'm sure there is plenty of stuff I don't know about.

If you plan on coming at me with justifications for any of that, don't. Just don't.

I am currently craving...

The takedown of the CW for all their racism, queerphobia, ableism, and sexualization of teens.

If you want to contribute to the takedown of the CW, please unfollow all of their accounts, stop engaging their accounts and using their hashtags, stop watching their shows live and on streaming services, uninstall their apps, and stop buying merch from them directly. This will hurt them by devaluing their shows. Idealy, cutting out WB property entirely would be good (and CBS, tbh).

We can't let them get away with what they have been doing anymore.

Supernatural told us who the bad guys were: The Network. In honor of the fight Supernatural tried, but failed to win, let's finish it, and take the Rancid Nutwork down.

@occamshipper's blog is a great place to find out more info.

[pourlapetitefleur]

Open Letter to Clexakru

Hey, fam.

March 3 is fast approaching and I don’t know about you guys, but not a day has passed since 307 when I haven’t felt…it. I still cry over Lexa. I still get so angry. And I know you do, too. So I’d like to make sure that we do something.

I’m not sure how I would’ve gotten through the initial grief without @lambocalypse​ and @honestlynatalie​ so generously and creatively sharing their own grief over Lexa. The hopelessness I felt, we all, thousands of us, felt, that night, was outrageous, unnecessary, and unforgivable.

I think March 3 should be Lexa Day. I think on Lexa Day, we should celebrate the power of our community when we come together. Our community is about love. For those of us who live in the United States, our country is getting colder all the time, thanks to our current Cheese-Doodle-in-Chief and his neonazi administration, and you can bet that’s going to affect minorities internationally too. We need solidarity. We need positivity. We need mass-affirmation for ourselves and our community, and who better to give that to us than ourselves? Lexa Day should be a day about our community, its strength, and the continuation of the movement we started a year ago. Because the fact is we have a long way to go. At least 29 TV lesbians died in 2016. That’s almost 17% of this list, which dates back to 1976, and 23/29 happened after Lexa.

So I’m not sure what we do yet. I would like to hear what other people are planning to do for the anniversary of “Thirteen.” Art? Selfies? Hashtags? Trolling JRot’s sorry ass on Twitter? Share your ideas because it would be wonderful if we could all do some of those things together!

[khalilhumam]

Women in Nigeria face a caustic landmine of political advocacy online

Register at https://mignation.com The Only Social Network for Migrants. #Immigration, #Migration, #Mignation ---

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/women-in-nigeria-face-a-caustic-landmine-of-political-advocacy-online/

Women in Nigeria face a caustic landmine of political advocacy online

#BringBackOurGirls and #ArewaMeToo reshaped political activism in Nigeria

Members of the Mother's Savings Club, Nigeria. Image by Karen Kasmauski/USAID in Africa via United States government work, public domain.

In Nigeria, the political advocacy sphere is a caustic landmine. Politics and advocacy usually get filtered through a religious and ethnocentric prism. Advocates with a strong social media presence — especially on Twitter — have to develop a tough skin to deal with the avalanche of gbas gbos (Nigerian Pidgin for “throwing punches”) in digital spaces.  Nigerian female advocates — in addition to weathering this identity-driven harmful content — also face the added reality of gender-driven attacks.   How do female advocates in Nigeria cope with the bitter online terrain such as trolling, hate speech and targeted misalignment of their messages? How do they forge ahead to make sure that these attacks do not simmer their resolve or eclipse the message of their movement? Two online social media movements in Nigeria lend powerful insights into the experiences of advocacy and gender: The #BringBackOurGirls movement, led by Dr. Oby Ezekwesili; and #ArewaMeToo, led by Fakhriyyah Hashim, both experienced gendered political hatred that greatly affected the integrity of their messages.  

#BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) movement

Six years ago, on April 15, 2014, about 200 school girls between the ages of 15 and 18, were forcefully abducted by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group, from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok near Maiduguri, in northeast Nigeria.  The kidnapping of the Chibok girls ignited an international outcry. The BBC reported that in April 2014,  the #BringBackOurGirls trended on Twitter with over 3.3 million tweets, 27 percent of the tweets came from Nigeria, 26 percent from the United States and 11 percent from the United Kingdom. 

Dr. Oby Ezekwesili answering a question during a UN Women event with #BringBackOurGirls Campaign Coordinators. Image by UN Women/Ryan Brown, September 14, 2014. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Dr. Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili, a former vice president of the World Bank, and one-time minister of education in Nigeria, started tweeting about the Chibok girls the day they were kidnapped. She was motivated to take action due to a previous attack on schoolboys at the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi in Yobe State, northeastern Nigeria on February 25, 2014. Fifty-nine boys died from gunshots or knife wounds, while the others were burnt to death.   However, it was not until April 23, when, as a guest at a UNESCO event in Port Harcourt, in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, did her cry for the release of the schoolgirls grab national and international attention: 

Lend your Voice to the Cause of our Girls. Please All, use the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls to keep the momentum UNTIL they are RESCUED. — Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) April 23, 2014

And on May 7, 2014, former American first lady Michelle Obama posted an image of herself on Twitter holding a sign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. She also released a video a few days later from the White House — making it a global sensation. It would take two years before the Nigerian army rescued one girl, in May 2016. By October 2016, 21 girls were reunited with their families. And by May 2017, Boko Haram militants released 82 girls from captivity. However, about 112 girls remain missing and 13 are presumed dead, according to a 2018 report. Ezekwesili co-founded the #BBOG movement that mobilized a global protest for the release of the Chibok girls. The movement later transformed into a formidable social movement organisation that has withstood the harsh Nigerian civic space. But the success of this movement occurred at great personal cost to Ezekwesili.   The kidnapping of the Chibok girls occurred on the threshold of the 2015 presidential election, and Ezekwesili's online advocacy was viewed through the prism of partisan politics by some. Her personal integrity was not only questioned but shredded. Some alleged that her #BBOG was merely a front to gain political capital.  Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide, accused Ezekwesili of being used by the then-opposition party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), to “undermine” the government of President Jonathan, thereby paving the way for APC’s “rise to power.”  Supporters of former President Jonathan and the Peoples’ Democratic Party spread “all manners of falsehoods” online against Ezekwesili in 2014:  “I was actually being insulted, maligned…” said Ezekwesili in a live Twitter video broadcast on April 14, to mark the sixth anniversary of the abduction.  Ezekwesili was falsely accused of being bitter for not gaining a ministerial appointment under Jonathan. According to her, some of her online attackers thought “that the reason we kept on with the advocacy of Chibok girls was that I wanted to be made a minister.”  “How could I want to be made a minister when I rejected the request to be a minister way before the Chibok girls were abducted three years later? How could I?” Ezekwesili said in the live Twitter video broadcast.  She became a 2018 presidential contender, but later withdrew from the race.  Live on Twitter, Ezekwesili recalled her grief: “It was a very sad thing for me to bear the thought that children who went to school were so killed and brutally murdered to the point where parents could not recognise their children.”  But her grief and rage was eclipsed by the political maligning she endured to get the #BBOG message out. 

#ArewaMeToo and NorthNormal 

On February 3, 2019, a young woman named Khadijah Adamua found the courage to tweet about the physical abuse inflicted by her ex-boyfriend. Adamua, who lives in Kano state in northwest Nigeria, had previously blogged about her horrific experiences.  Fellow Nigerian Fakhriyyah Hashim tweeted her support for Adamua with the hashtag #ArewaMeToo: 

Neglecting his victims will only fuel this culture of rape and sexual harassment, and it will be a slap in the faces of victims that have bravely come out to tell of their haunting experiences. We all know the social dynamics of the North that demonises victims. — Fakhrriyyah (@FakhuusHashim) February 10, 2019

#ArewaMeToo became northern Nigeria’s version of the global #MeToo movement. (Arewa is the Hausa word for “North”) — igniting a storm of online discussion on rape and other forms of gender-based violence. Violence against women is rampant throughout Nigeria. However, Relief Web asserts that between November 2014 and January 2015, northeastern Nigeria, especially Borno State, recorded the most violence against women. In the Muslim-majority north, discussions about these taboo topics are difficult, often forcing victims into silence.  The online rage of #ArewaMeToo propelled the NorthNormal offline protests in Bauchi, Kano, Niger. Sixteen days of NorthNormal protests occurred in November last year across eight northern Nigerian states and Abuja. They were largely positive and state legislators “were receptive of young indigenes” for taking “the baton to push for the VAPP,” Hashim said.  However, in Sokoto State, “government played a role in harassing and arresting NorthNormal campaigners,” Hashim said. The police manhandled a local leader of the movement. Thereafter, protests were banned by the Sultan of Sokoto, head of Nigerian Muslims.    According to Hashim, NorthNormal grew out of the #ArewaMeToo hashtag, and has two objectives: advocating for “the domestication of the Violence against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP),” and championing the conversation on “various forms of gender-based violence and rape culture across northern Nigeria.” The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 was signed into law on May 23, 2015. Under the VAPP Act — an improvement on the provisions of Nigeria’s penal code — acts of violence against women are punishable offences. This includes rape, spousal battery, forceful home ejections, forced financial dependence or economic abuse, harmful widowhood practices, female circumcision or genital mutilation, and/or child abandonment. 

In Nigeria, rape is punishable with life imprisonment. A minor can face up to 14 years in prison. In cases of gang rape, offenders are jointly liable to 20 years imprisonment without the option of a fine.

However, Section 47 of the VAPP Act stipulates that this legislation applies only in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. NorthNormal and other organisations have been campaigning for all 36 state legislative assemblies to domesticate this act.  Backlash against advocates  One year after sparking the #ArewaMeToo movement, Hashim told Global Voices that although their advocacy exposed the “rot within society,” it also took its toll.  Hashim experienced major online harassment when her group confronted “an alleged serial abuser of minors” who works at the finance ministry as part of their online advocacy. She told Global Voices: 

We launched a campaign against him [the serial abuser], demanding that he be sacked by the minister; some people did not like that so they orchestrated an online targeted harassment campaign to delegitimise ArewaMeToo.

According to Hashim, harassers attempted to delegitimise ArewaMeToo by “associating ArewaMeToo with LGBTQ [lesbians, gay, bisexual transgender and queer people] and “their strategy worked as online harassment gained momentum,” Hashim said.  In Nigeria, gay marriage is illegal and under Sharia and penal legal codes, sodomy and lesbianism are punishable in some states.  By associating Haashim's movement with LGBTQ rights, online trolls distorted their message and framed #ArewaToo and NorthNormal as illegitimate.  However, Global Voices was not able to independently verify tweets that pinned Hashim's movement to LGBTQ rights. Still, Hashim posts messages of hope on Twitter:

To every young girl out there that’s hurting, that’s yearning to find a voice, it was all for you. For those innocent young girls and boys that were touched and silenced, this voice is yours and no one can take that away from you. #ArewaMeToo — Fakhrriyyah (@FakhuusHashim) February 23, 2020

Fakhriyyah Hashim, co-founder of #ArewaToo and NorthNormal (Image used with her permission).

She said all these experiences helped her grow a “really thick skin”:

In my experience of being loud on political Twitter for good governance, I’ve grown a really thick skin, but even that didn't prepare me for the amount of backlash we got through ArewaMeToo and NorthNormal. Though I mustered all of that and did not retreat to any cave, I did begin feeling demoralised about Northern Nigeria’s governanace and response to sexual violence…After every episode of attacks, we did gather more strength and energy to push back because the backlash made us see how society enforced the culture of silence and if we allowed our lips to be sealed then that would be the real tragedy. 

Sadly, Hashim and Ezekwesili still struggle with the excruciating “lack of empathy” that characterises discourse about gender-based violence on- and offline.  According to Hashim, this “deliberate maligning of a cause that only seeks better for victims of sexual violence” is incredibly difficult to grasp. 

This article is part of the project, “the identity matrix: platform regulation of online threats to expression in Africa”. These posts interrogate identity-driven online hate speech or discrimination based on language or geographic origin, misinformation and harassment (particularly against female activists and journalists) prevalent in the digital spaces of seven African countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda. The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

Written by Nwachukwu Egbunike · comments (0) Donate · Share this: twitter facebook reddit

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Here are some of the most amazing #BlendOutBullying posts to inspire you to get involved in our anti-bullying campaign

http://fashion-trendin.com/here-are-some-of-the-most-amazing-blendoutbullying-posts-to-inspire-you-to-get-involved-in-our-anti-bullying-campaign/

Here are some of the most amazing #BlendOutBullying posts to inspire you to get involved in our anti-bullying campaign

GLAMOUR’s #BlendOutBullying campaign is well underway, with so many people standing up to the online bullies to say that enough is enough.

Whether you use the words as contour, write a word on your lip and blend it in, or use concealer to cover up ink, it’s all about taking back the power from the bullies and creating an inspiring video to encourage others to do the same. You may recall blogger Nabela Noor’s viral video from December 2017, which showed her blending away the words ‘fat’ and ‘pig’ on her face to reveal a stunning makeup look, which has inspired the challenge at the heart of the campaign.

Here are just a selection of all your amazing videos and selfies – keep them coming!

El Wood

Sade Giliberti

View this post on Instagram

No longer will we tolerate cyber bullying!! On a daily basis people all over the world are being bullied by people they don’t know and sometimes by people they do know all because of how they look, their sexual identity, their skin colour and so much more! I’m honoured to be a part of this movement with @glamouruk and many others out there like it! It’s been a while since I was bullied online – yea there was that person a while back after the release of the cyber bully film I was in. But she didn’t say anything hurtful really, she just trolled all my profiles and called my hair a mop 🙄😒👏🏽 How original! However in the past, and especially on FB, I’ve been called a Dyke and Butch… And as much as there are lesbians out there that identify as both, I don’t. I don’t like being called a dyke and let’s be honest, I’m no where near butch. And I was called this all because I wore a smart shirt and a tie 🤪 I laugh today, but back then, it hurt me immensely! • • • My skin is so much thicker than back then! I don’t tolerate hate of any kind. I refuse too! But I’m one of the very few who can easily brush it off. Who don’t take it to heart. Who read and very shortly after forget. We’ve lost too many young lives to cyber bullies. 😠🙎🏽‍♀️ • • • The task here is easy. Take a stand with us and assist us as we #BlendOutBullying – post a selfie or video of yourself with any hurtful words you’ve been called online and then blend them out! And then use the above hashtag. I nominate all of you, and ask you to nominate other people when you post! 🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏿‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️ • • • GLAMOUR U.K is also raising money for The Diana Award and you can donate by texting GLAM18 and the amount you wish to donate to 70070 (eg GLAM18 £3). • • • #thetimeisnow #blendoutbullying #haltthehate #notocyberbullying

A post shared by Sade Giliberti (@onesadie) on Sep 14, 2018 at 6:06am PDT

Emma Breschi

View this post on Instagram

“TOO FAT TO FUCK” 😎 (lol spelt it wrong tho in the video innit) 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anwyays, when @glamouruk asked me “What was the most hurtful words you’ve experienced” , those four words came flashing before my eyes and it took me back to one of the saddest times in my life 😢 The truth is… we really have no control over what others might say or think about us. To be honest, I think it’s just a reflection on that person’s own insecurities. Someone is always going to have an opinion and judge you as a person. But reality is… if my being upsets you … that really isn’t my problem 💁🏻‍♀️ If you are true, kind, and you ain’t hurting nobody… I’m sorry that mofo who has something to say about you can take their words and shove it up their 🍑 I NOMINATE @malikoa @portiaferrari @elenabreschi , BUT ALSO EVERYONE & ANYONE TO JOIN ME TO #BlendOutBullying 🙏🏽 Sharing our experiences and blending away the words that once hurt us, allows us to forgive, heal and take back the power from bullying! 🌸 @glamouruk 🌸 is raising money for The Diana Award and you can donate by texting GLAM18 and the amount you wishyo donated to 70070 (eg. GLAM18 £3) 🌸 If you can’t quite manage a video, feel free to post a selfie 😊

A post shared by 🌹Emmerzz 🌹 (@emmabreschi) on Sep 13, 2018 at 7:06am PDT

Hani Sidow

Bloom Twins

Emily Byrom

Sophia Mitchell

Nicole Joseph

And of course, the amazing and inspirational women who helped us launch the campaign.

Chidera Eggerue

Heather Moorhouse

Chessie King

Callie Thorpe

and Ling KT.

Our Inspiration

When we started this campaign, we wanted to find a way of showing the bullies that we’re taking back the power, and nothing spoke to us more than Nabela Noor’s video from December 2017. The beauty blogger took to her channel to write some of the most horrific things that had been said to her and blended them into an incredible beauty look. This strength and positivity inspired us, and we’re so thankful that we had Nabela’s blessing for the campaign.

View this post on Instagram

THIS IS ME 💪🏽 In 2017, I was called a pig, fat, ugly, a monster… I was told I should kill myself because of how I look. I received thousands of messages like this all year & there have been times where I let those words destroy me. But as my confidence strengthened, I became a fortress of self-love that could not be broken by the words of unhappy people. I learned quickly that happy people don’t say hurtful things. And that happiness begins with self-love. The girl I see in the mirror is beautiful with and without makeup, whether I am a size 6 or a size 16. So as 2018 begins, I’m leaving behind all of the words that once hurt me – all of the doubt that once controlled me. No one can tell us who we are. We are glorious. We are beautiful. We are worthy. This video is a small victory in my self-love revolution & I can’t wait to continue the fight in 2018. I am not the things they say I am. I will never be reduced to their words. I am brave, I am strong, I am who I’m meant to be. This is me. 💖 P R O D U C T S // @farsalicare unicorn essence @beautyblender @maybelline master camo color correcting pen @urbandecaycosmetics brow box, naked skin concealer, blush in “video” @jouercosmetics lipliner tawny rose @doseofcolors liquid lip in truffle @toofaced chocolate gold palette, born this way concealer & peel off glitter liner @maccosmetics @patrickstarrr #macpatrickstarrr setting powder @kkwbeauty contour kit @hudabeauty jade lashes & winter solstice palette SONG: “This is Me” Cover by @emoniwilkins & @the7thaveband. Originally sung by @KealaSettle from the incredible movie #thegreatestshowman #wakeupandmakeup #tarte #hudabeauty #toofaced #makeup #tutorial #diy #instatut #beauty #makeuptutorial #wtfbeautyhacks #1minutemakeup #beautylook #benefitcosmetics #allmodernmakeup #makeupclips #eyeblogbeauty #hairmakeupdiary #makegirlz #beautyqueens4ever #melformakeup #transformation #peachyqueenblog

A post shared by Nabela Noor (@nabela) on Dec 31, 2017 at 9:28am PST

Anti Bullying Pro

There are many organisations that help provide support and advice to people struggling with online bullying, but one making waves at the moment is Anti-Bullying Pro, from the charity The Diana Award, who we’re partnering with for this campaign.

The Diana Award was established in 1999 by the British Government who wanted continue Princess Diana’s legacy by establishing a formal way to recognise young people who were going above and beyond the expected in their local communities. In 2006, they became an independent charity, which enabled them to develop into a fully-fledged youth-led movement. Five years later, they launched their now world-famous Anti-Bullying Programme and later, in 2012, their Mentoring Programme.

You can donate to the campaign by texting GLAM18 to 70700 with the amount you wish to donate (ie GLAM18 £3). Just £30 trains one anti-bullying ambassador who can then go on to help countless others.

We hope you’ll join us to call time on online bullying.

[star-anise]

Did you check lesbian-lizard’s blog? Because I did. I sw a big uptick on radfem trolling on my Activity page, tracked a bunch of it back to lesbian-lizard’s reblog, checked her blog, and went, “...Ah.”

This is not about her being a lesbian. I genuinely am okay with single-issue spaces or groups--sometimes you only get things done by narrowing down to an achievable local goal, like getting a schoolboard to change one (1) policy or trying to save one (1) local park. And if people want cis-lesbian-only cruises or ice cream socials or even social activist groups, I’m okay with that, so long as their major goal wasn’t trying to tear down another marginalized group, like trans people.

This is about her being a full-on gender critical “remove the T” radfem. This is about her actively opposing trans rights and queer activism because it’s too inclusive. One of her responses to my post was to mock the idea that there are any solely gay-focused groups left, because the US has no nationally-relevant activist groups that have not expanded to include trans rights in their portfolios. (I said there are gay-only groups around. I did not say they were large, well-funded, or nationally important. There may be a reason for that.)

Otherwise her blog is littered with references to “trans-identified males” (the radfem term for trans women), open doubt of the idea that trans people are marginalized, and statements like, “Transphobia is based on reality. Homophobia is based on stupidity. Don’t compare the two.”

Treehouses are fine, but I’m calling hers a treehouse because she acts affronted that transphobia dares to be one of the LGBT community’s major priorities right now. She needs to stop attacking the trans rights movement.

I realize this is a shock to you if you expect me to be very gentle and mild and patient all the time, but radfems who go out of their way to hurt trans people make me really angry, and this one in particular has been exacerbating my headache for days, and then, when I checked her blog, there was a post of her mocking, misgendering, and insulting a screeencapped tweet of my childhood best friend, a trans person whose friendship after two years of complete ostracization was my first step back from having decided I didn’t even belong to the human race.

If you’re not up to seeing me argue with radfems, filter the #weedwhacking hashtag. Otherwise, please stop wringing your hands at me for being “unkind.”

I think it’s ridiculous how people can say “queer” is too vague because it “doesn’t indicate your positionality” but then they think [cis] “lesbian” is completely sufficient information even though it doesn’t indicate race, class, legal status, dis/ability, or anything else.

It’s just so blatantly, “Indicate your positionality! That is, I mean, indicate whether I can position myself as more oppressed than you in precisely the one sense I care about. Oh, me? I’m required to divulge absolutely no information that might indicate my relative privilege in other areas. Solidarity? I don’t know her.”

[alucienas]

Hi everyone & Happy Pride month! The 2018 Running of the Trolls will be held on June 9th! I will be participating & streaming the event on my Twitch: twitch.tv/alucienas The main point of the event is to raise awareness & donations for The Trevor Project! Donation link for The Trevor Project will be posted on my Twitch as well! From here I'll quote the original post: "The Running of the Trolls is back for its 4th year on June 9th! Our goal this year is $2,500!! Let’s make and smash our goal!! Running of the Trolls 2018 will benefit The Trevor Project, a nonprofit group that is focused on suicide prevention among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and other youth. The Running of the Trolls will help us celebrate Pride Month, and encourage the younger members of our community, both in and out of World of Warcraft, who may most need support and help through their teenage years to reach out for it, and to encourage the rest of the community to help." Everyone is welcome to participate! Please spread the word with the hashtags: #TrollRun2k18 For more info on time & date, etc: https://dravvie.tumblr.com/post/172651691871

[phaylenfairchild]

The Straight Pride Badge Looks Like A Cheap Drug Store Eyeshadow Pallet (And I Love It.)

In the world we inhabit of the Have and Have-Nots — I realize that sounded like the beginning of a Dr. Suess Book, but I digress.) — cisgender, heterosexuals tend to get a little resentful that we have things like Gay Pride, or Trans Day of Visibility, and well, like their Rights and Equalities, they want to keep these things for themselves.

For a long time, those of the heterosexual persuasion have wanted their own pride flag, their own marches and days of acknowledgement, and have been begging for it on social media like that little kid from “A Christmas Story” who wanted a Red Rider BB Gun. They also want White Pride marches, and to rail against this mythical beast — the troll of all “ism’s” — Reverse racism, by declaring their resistance to white oppression, despite none existing. Does it still need pointed out that White people invented the system of Racism, and thus cannot be a victim of their own machine? I guess it does. Their machine worked too well, actually, and victimized millions of people… But they view their own victims as possessing a privilege they do not have; that of outrage… thus, they inherently desire the right to be outraged as well, so they feign their own victim-hood, just to keep the status quo. “If you can be angry, I can too.” or, to borrow from the classic film, Annie Get Your Gun, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Except they didn’t.

It’s hard to be angry. I literally can’t. There’s a pang of pity over the sheer demonstration of ignorance, which I’m using as a nice word for blatant stupidity. Another part of me feels like they’re a mere puppy, who rolls in their own crap because they think it makes them smell fantastic, never realizing the rest of the world is cringing, as we run away holding our noses.

So, in the latest effort to put on parade their thinly veiled anti-gay belief system, they’ve attempted to create their own “Straight pride Flag” and it looks as bland, boring and sub-par as one would expect from a bunch of folks who have spent their life comfortably between the goal posts of acceptability, never having to acknowledge or fight against adversity because of their gender, color, or sexual orientation.

I present to you the “Straight Pride Flag pin” — possibly a brooch, for the lapel of a woman who would most certainly need to speak to every manager of every salon, department store and restaurant she’s ever been to. For every Barbara, Debra, or Karen, and their equally heterosexual, missionary-position-only husbands, Tom, Bob and Bill (Sometimes William at the office where he sells car insurance.) here is the most dull pallet one could possibly manifest, not even if they tried harder:

I feel like Avon might have sold this in 1978, back when we women were returning to the phase of “I’m wearing make up, but you can’t tell” era of mediocrity. As a piece of fine jewelry, nothing about this shouts “Wow! That’s Brandable!” to me, like I wouldn’t buy it on a Mug or a T-shirt because most definitely one of the colors would disappear.

Oddly, so uninspired was this flag that literally two of the colors are exactly the same. Brown and brown. Even taking this into my lab- which is photoshop- the gradient of hex codes indicating the colors were indifferent to each other. Did they just get to the fifth color and get tired? Did Harry look to Brad and just exclaim, “Wow, this is hard.” They could have gone to the Lowe’s paint department and picked out a more creative swatch from the wall, to be honest- problem is, they’d likely have had to ask the lesbian working the counter for help. For the record, I love Lowe’s lesbians. They helped me build my deck.

I’m not mad about the Straight Pride Flag, but confess, I am amused, if not altogether entertained. You see, dear reader, everyone is looking to be mad about something. Everyone wants to be incensed by the slighted slip of the tongue or conflicting opinion that it’s put an entire generation of folks on meds to cope with the fact that people… brace yourself.. won’t always agree with you.

I’ve been called lebophobic for defending Transwomen against “Radfems” who claim the state of existing as Transgender is a War on Women- and they even have rallies and marches about it.

I’ve been called homophobic for standing up against gay politicians who want to excise Transgender people from the LGBT umbrella and declare we are a “Liability to the gay agenda.”

I’ve been called Religiously intolerant for defending lesbians who just wanted a damn cake baked for their wedding.

I was accused of “Body Shaming” for chastising a stranger who sent me a photo of his genitals and acted like he was doing me some enormous favor. Enormous, not the word I used for his penis, meant that I was humiliating him rather than defending my right to exist in my space without having some random guy’s penis thrust in my face… er… inbox.

I’ve been called- get ready for this- Transphobic for saying that I’m not bothered by the hatred spewed at me, or deleting nasty transphobic comments on my wall because I believe in letting people have their opinion, and letting the world at large judge them for it, rather than hide it, or delete it on their behalf.

I laugh. I’m a comedian. I stopped taking the world so seriously long long ago, recognizing that if I let every knife hurled in my direction cut too deeply, I’d end up scarred for life. Indeed, I write in defense of disenfranchised communities; I fight back against political ostracization of LGBT people, People of color, all women and the brutal, disproportionate murders of Trans Women of color. I know when it’s serious.

I also know when it’s ridiculous. And like the time I had to roll my eyes and hold in my teeth when I read that white women were mobilizing to get the #WhiteBabyMagic hashtag trending on twitter to combat, what they uniformly dubbed, “the aggressive breeding of black folks” I refuse to debate with those in a vacuum.

Instead, I’m going to laugh at them.

And their straight flag. And their straight pride marches and their declarations of reverse racism, and their fear… their absolute desperate fear of, for once, being in a minority.

Indeed, White, straight folks fear falling into the minority.

That fear is born from the reality that, perhaps, suddenly they will become vulnerable to being treated just as they have treated us for centuries.

Indeed, that must be terrifying.

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[zeetheus]

So, here’s a recap of the entire situation

From start to finish.

Because, believe me, I had no idea my ban would lead to 2 other completely innocent people getting banned for, essentially, asking staff what happened, and then expressing the desire to talk to them about it.

Not exaggerating.

On May 5th 2017, my Extremely Straight mom was being pushy, asking me about my OCs. For those unaware, the OCs in question are:

A nonwhite nonbinary aromantic bisexual with ASPD

A nonwhite asexual whose romantic orientation is a hashtag Mess, who has depression, anxiety, OCD, and is autistic

The above OCs are in a queerplatonic relationship

(This is important, I promise)

So after escaping to my laptop, I go on Quixol to try and decompress, and start off by expressing my general exhaustion and discomfort. A reasonable person who is part of the staff of a LGBT+ & ND safe server would, hopefully, take that as a disclaimer that I had been through Garbage, and had no energy.

So after having to literally physically escape an uncomfortable discussion with my mom, and after literally telling chat about the situation, I’m directly concern-trolled for calling my queerplatonic OCs, ‘queer’?

Once?

When there’s a perfectly serviceable blacklist on this very server?

(Minor note: I’m aware that Blake’s pronouns are it/its, however, I had typoed ‘pals’ into ‘pal’ & I apologize for that small misunderstanding)

So anyways, that sucked, and dealing with everything that happened that afternoon had destroyed my energy for a week. Clearly staff had made their stance clear, even if I didn’t agree with it.

I decided not to use ‘queer’ on that server, or at the very least not towards anyone who 1) wasn’t queer, and 2) might give me shit for even saying that word, even if I’m not mislabeling anyone. Such as, the staff.

So, I don’t use it.

Flash forward to late November of 2017.

I’m on my twitter, tweeting tweets, which are mostly meant for me, because it’s my gotdamn twitter account. I tweet a lot of junk, RT a lot of fandom garbage, and sometimes, when something triggers me, I try to unpack my abuse.

I’d like to make it clear right now that I never listed my twitter under my Bio (or at the very least, had never intended to. I don’t remember whether or not I put it there, and if I did, my mistake) and have only given my twitter url out once. The only connection my twitter had to Quixol was by following the Quixol twitter.

Over the course of a few weeks I tweeted out some ~*spicy*~ Opinions, which, you’re free to disagree with me about, especially since it’s fucking twitter, which has a character limit, so a lot of my word choice had to be downsized to fit in a fuckin 280 character text box.

On top of that I’m not even a Public LGBTQ+ Wank Persona, so I had no incentive to hash things out step-by-step to my... 10 followers. By all accounts, my tweets are, by their very nature, inconsequential to anyone except my followers.

(My account was not locked at the time, but I understandably later did so)

Anyways, in order:

This one was pretty clearly about Quixol, but I should probably state for the record that I had no idea ‘queer’ in MANY DIFFERENT ITERATIONS had been exhaustively banned from signs, so I had no idea it wasn’t physically possible to properly spell out ‘genderqueer’ without censoring it in some fashion.

Anyways, continuing with my ~*spicy opinions*~

I mentioned before how I was essentially abused by people I trusted for not being acceptably gay. I don’t know how ‘I’m not gay and I don’t need to be, I’m happy with being aro ace’ is a statement so vile that gay people everywhere take immense offense to it, to the point where staff finds it a bannable offense...

By the way, yes, I did get banned for these.

Because days after I was banned, staff approached Vin about my banning, of their own volition.

At the end of the day, Vin had planned to write out an essay, so that they could have a reasonable discussion with staff.

I wasn’t too Thrilled at the prospect of trying to have a discussion with people who intentionally villainized me, took my words out of context, and made the worst possible interpretations out of them, but I supported Vin’s idea.

However, she was in the middle of college finals, and preparing for chanukkah, so she couldn’t get right back around to it for another week.

Note that at this point Vin had not been contacted by staff due to her own behavior, past actions, without even a mention of her tumblr or its content.

THIS IS EXTREMELY CRUCIAL INFORMATION.

IF THEY HAD REASON TO BAN VIN FOR ANYTHING, WHY DID THEY CONTACT VIN ABOUT MY BAN FIRST?

But anyways, let’s cut to 8 days later, because I certainly couldn’t log into Quixol and subsequently do anything.

And in that time, neither could Vin.

I wasn’t surprised at this point. Staff had made it plain and clear to me that if they had a mild enough reason to ban you, they’ll find whatever evidence they need in order to finalize it.

FOUR POSTS, YALL. FOUR POSTS AND SHE GOES FROM ‘ONE OF THE MOST ACTIVE AND BELOVED COMMUNITY MEMBERS’ TO ‘A BONA FIDE THREAT TO PEOPLE ON QUIXOL, WORTH BANNING.’

The four posts in question will be linked later, for now, continuing:

So... it’s not actually about protecting people on the server, it’s about... finding people that agree with your particular flavor of “LGBT+” politics?

R...really?

Where is the actual harm that Vin has done on the server to warrant being banned?

Shit, what about me? What tangible, material harm did my tweets, squirreled away on my own separate twitter, that no one follows me on, do to anyone on the server?

Anyways it doesn’t end here, because in this chain of bullshit, someone else went down trying to ask staff “why for the love of god did you ban Vin?”

Screenshots (Warning, it’s 65 pages long)

All four posts that Vin was banned over are included as well.

But if you’re interested in my personal highlight reel:

ah yes, a non-ace trans woman trying to silence anyone who casts doubt on her decisions to silence queer ace people for having experienced abuse similar to hers, because that’s not some top-tier oppression olympics ‘my pain outweighs yours’ b.s.

remember that time staff literally approached vin of their own volition with screenshots of my tweets at the ready, trying to grill vin about my tweets and whether or not she agreed with them?

where’d that go?

did they suddenly get tired of it after being confronted with other, perfectly average Quixol users, suddenly also questioning their decisions against their will?

funny how vin got to have a discussion about her posts. wonder why they didn’t ever contact me except to ban me

so one of the posts was barely incriminating, but the staff decided to use it against her AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST, and then decided to use it decisively against her after she didn’t give the reaction they wanted from her (again, they mention it as one of the 4 posts she was banned over)

THIS WOULD BE PERFECTLY REASONABLE IF THEY HADN’T BEEN LITERALLY SEARCHING THROUGH HER TUMBLR, DIGGING UP POSTS FROM UP TO TWO YEARS AGO

IT WOULD ALSO BE REASONABLE IF:

I HAD ACTUALLY PUT MY TWITTER URL IN MY BIO, WHICH I’M PRETTY SURE I DID NOT

I HADN’T BEEN BANNED NOT TWO WEEKS AGO FOR EXISTING ADJACENT TO QUIXOL, BARELY IF EVER MENTIONING IT ON TWITTER, NEVER LINKING IT FROM THE SERVER, WHO THE HELL WAS SEARCHING THROUGH MY TWITTER, AND WHY DIDN’T BEAN EVEN MENTION DEFENDING MY RIGHT TO HAVE A SEPARATE TWITTER THAT WAS NOT PUBLICLY LINKED TO QUIXOL!? WHAT!?!

glad to know the rest of the staff also goes full tilt on oppression olympics

still waiting on the part where vin actually said something transmisogynistic or otherwise materially harmful to someone on the server

oh no!! vivian just called a lesbian trans woman transmisogynistic!! clearly if this is the game staff wants to play that means they all needs to either agree to disagree, or realize that peoples’ experiences differ from theirs, and are not something to be weaponized in order to silence people that you disagree with!! what a world!!

tfw staff tokenize themselves before they even make the slightest movement towards ‘people have different experiences besides the ones i have/know about, but we are all here and we should work together and support each other’

are they even really a real LGBT+ server

very clear, very clear distinction here... somewhere? weren’t they just saying that they’re not the same things? so they overlap but are different? uh... and...???

i don’t have a word for ‘white trans women that try to weaponize the transmisogyny that overwhelmingly nonwhite twoc experience in order to silence anyone who questions her ~*authority*~ despite the fact that there is no universal ‘trans woman experience’ that anyone can hold her as an authority AS’...

this is literally the kind of weaponized-suffering authoritarianism people talk about when they deconstruct neoliberalism and ‘oppression olympics’ and the staff all seem to be very involved in it

gee whiz, im no longer wondering why i, a queer aro ace, was banned

bean weaponizing his aceness as the staff’s ‘authority’ on ace matters, instead of, yanno, understanding that vin has had her own experiences, that are different, which leads her to take different stances

especially since bean himself admits he hasn’t faced any problems due to his aceness

lucky him, i guess

“this is the first time we’ve had to really make a ban based on evidence that was off quixol”

fuck you in particular

my tweets weren’t for you or anyone else on Quixol

you and the rest of the staff decided to ban me anyways

and now that you snatched vin in your chain-ban and you have a lot of people who are QUESTIONING YOUR DECISIONS you try and act sympathetic?

if people are reacting like this, and the evidence wasn’t even on the server, why even ban someone?

if you intend to heavily police Quixol users you should maybe fucking say so

that way no one’s suprised

i have intense paranoia issues and the entire fact that YALL WERE STALKING MY TWITTER hasn’t helped in the least

literally here are tweets i made in the same timeframe as my ~*banned tweets*~

like you claim to be protecting users, despite the fact that no one on the server was harmed

and you claim to be inclusive, despite the fact that you silence queer people at every turn

and you claim to be safe for ND people, while causing them anxiety and paranoia

literally what do you even stand for at this point

"we are all trans? we are all gay?”

yeah? and?

you still closet the hell out of queer people?

especially queer people with identities you don’t like?

queer people who literally use the word to describe their OCs in plural since they are neither gay nor trans?

you literally wouldn’t let me use the word ‘queer’ to describe my OCs?

hhhhhhhhhhhhh

oh no!!! queer people exist online

seriously is this an LGBT+ server or some kind of fundie christian camp

also, get a load of all of the 0 times vin and i have called anyone queer without their consent, seeing as the first and only time I used it, i got scolded by staff for it

funny story. as soon as I read this screen i knew why I was actually, really banned

way back up at the top of this post, when i had confronted Blake about the fact that I had just called my OCs ‘queer’

and was told ‘be careful, don’t use that word on people who don’t want it applied to them’

i had already been mislabeled as ‘gay’ numerous times on the server itself, which was triggering for me

after bringing up that particular grievance with staff, using almost the exact same wording as Fritjof, i decided to blacklist ‘gay’ so that i wouldn’t guilt gay people into hiding it from others, while protecting myself

very interesting that the staff doesn’t have the same attitude towards people being able to protect themselves from ‘queer’

it’s almost like the censoring of queer is not for the sake of protecting users... but instead...

Just so we make this clear, ‘queer’ which staff defines as being ‘gay and trans’ (but not queer itself for some reason?) is equivalent to:

triggering thing that must be blacklisted (that’s why the blacklist exists)

nsfw chats in global

literally how do yall say ‘queer means gay and trans’ and equate its use with ‘nsfw’

again... is this an LGBT+ server... or a conservative christian summer camp...

it feels almost... indistinguishable...

yes, that is the admin of an ND & LGBT+ server using the same ‘real world’ rhetoric that anti sj bigots and conservatives make

interestingly enough, it’s also common among bigots in the LGBT community, such as truscum, aphobes, and queerphobes, towards anyone with a ‘special snowflake’ identity that they don’t particularly like or are interested in including

but an ace man can never be acephobic right? he’s an authority on ace issues after all, and so all aces must have his same experiences

/s

pedophilia?? gee whiz i wonder what that post Vin reblogged about ‘people accusing others of pedophilia that weren’t actually pedophilia’ was about. surely it wasn’t about staff, right?

so, recap of bannable offenses here on Quixol Dot Corn:

Have a public twitter, where you tweet opinions that staff disagrees with

Be friends with the above person who was banned, and when you don’t say anything banworthy when they confront you, have a tumblr account with enough questionable posts for them to construct a banworthy offense

Once both of the above have been banned, ask staff about their decisions, and then try to reasonably discuss their ongoing queerphobia

So anyways, if you’re wondering where Zeetheus, Vin_Venture, and Fritjof42 went... that’s pretty much what happened!

Staff has zero intent on protecting their userbase, just policing the hell out of their opinions, to the point where off-Quixol content is considered a bannable offense, and if staff hasn’t made that clear to anyone, I hope this post does.

Queer people are not safe on Quixol

Unacceptably ace people are not safe on Quixol

The vast majority of people under the LGBT+ umbrella that don’t fit under ‘gay and trans’ are not safe on Quixol

People with anxiety, who have experienced stalking paranoia are not safe on Quixol

[captaintroi]

@crazyintheeast​  With all due respect, whilst I understand disappointment over some who ship SC......they are the minority.  Realistically, I feel in all fairness you have failed to notice there are toxic people out there are in every group.  Fortunately homophobic assholes are also the minority and not the majority, yet they are much more vociferous in the anti LGBTQ groups.  As someone who did not start out shipping SC I spent some time sifting through accounts on twitter and found a great many were indeed fake SC accounts trying to frame the fandom.....this is what made me want to defend SC instead of staying silent.  The sheer volume of underhandedness, trolling, screencapturing afer being blocked, in order to twist what one says is called stalking, and having hate sent by messages is something I have also myself been on the receiving end of.   All for merely writing my views on the show’s direction and decisions, or debating the merits of fictional characters.  Or just commenting on a post or picture.  Haters also cannot stay away from the SC hashtag because they are constantly spoiling for a fight.  Their hate does not permit them to reason on the fact that it is just difference of opinion.  They resort to personal attacks, because they cannot remain civil and question or debate respectfully, without using blame tactics or insulting innuendo.  Having said that, unfortunately it would be unrealistic to not admit there is never a shortage of emotionally immature types out there in every group, including SC.

The main takeaway from all haters is their total inability to distinguish logic from bias.  We cannot in all fairness and logic generalize people of all walks of life, of every race, gender, background, nationality, and sexual orientation as problematic just because they ship the same thing.  SC shippers just like everyone else, they are men, women, gay, straight, lesbian , bi, trans, black, white, asian, etc.  Generalizing makes as much sense as the racist idiots and homophobes out there.   

Please don’t take my comments as a criticism of your personal view or experience, everyone has a right to their opinion.  However, I have seen these things and they cannot be denied.   What fandom has gone out of their way promoting and rallying for charitable work? SC  What fandom has stood up for Azie Tesfai unilaterally? SC. What fandom has celebrated and equally stood up for Nicole Maines? SC.   These are facts not false claims.   

As a bisexual my boyfriend and I both began shipping Kara and Mon-El because we liked Chris’ comedic talent.  However, we still saw the continual build up and queerbaiting with Lena.  Do SC fans deserve SC canon?  Without doubt because the disrespect to the community and treatment of LGBTQ characters will one day be held up as an example of closet homophobia.  The sidelining and hiring to score progressive kudos, in addition to the queerbaiting has been harmful to many young fans out there and the show needs to make this right.  You cannot stand on a soapbox about Female Empowerment and saying you champion LGBTQ,  yet behave as this show and some connected have for seasons, making ignorant and uninformed insulting comments without expecting backlash.  

Again I hope you don’t take my view expressed here as a criticism, I understand how it feels to be upset by something and feel the need to express anger and disappointment.   As for the show.....I don’t for one moment buy that it was due to delays from Melissa’s pregnancy, Covid or whatever else they want to say.  Except fear of further loss of viewership, controversy and lack of accountability is what influenced their decision to throw in the towel.  I don’t blame Melissa, I’m sure living away from home with a baby added to her probably agreeing with showrunners to end thinking.....Ok we’ve had a good run and reached syndication.  It is a sad chapter in entertainment to be in 2020 and see a female led show, with such amazing potential from such a talented cast, have to end because of poor ratings, and showrunners who cannot commit to righting a listing ship.  

People going why not make Supergirl canon what do they have to lose. Like really guys? Really? Did you magically forgot what Supercorp became in the last few years ? We started out as a loving close knit fandom but as we got popular we let disgusting and quite often racist assholes take over our fandom . Supercorp went from a small loving and dedicated fandom to an example of a toxic fandom that tolerates and even celebrates racists and bigots. A fandom who has harassed almost the entire cast personally . Fact is WE DO NOT DESERVE SUPERCORP to be canon and the writers , the show runners and the cast have zero reason to want to reward our endless bullying , harassment and outright bigotry

Do I love Supercorp? Yes and I always will. Do I love our fandom? I loved what we used to be but not what we became . And let’s be clear this is on all of us . Not just the toxic trolls but on those of us who tolerated them nay celebrated them , on those of us who just gave up and retreated to our own isolated corner. We all had a hand to play in the ugliness that Supercorp became . Some more far more then others but it’s on all of us

[nickreposted]

nicreations shared this story from McSweeney’s: #EarthIsBae THE BEGINNING (of the end)GENESI$ 11 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. #CreationGoals #EarthIsBae2 Now the earth was formless and basic, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was lowkey hovering over the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and it was lit AF.4God saw that the light was so extra, so He separated the light from the darkness (for aesthetic), then bragged it was hashtag no filter.5 God called the light “day,” then threw some shade and called it “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first truly #blessed day.6Then God, who was L-I-V-I-N-G for this, said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it like it was NBD.8God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning — the second #blessed day, and the first #TransformationTuesday.9 Then God was like, “You know TFW when you should let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear?” (He whispered yaaasssss to Himself.)10So God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas,” and he created a cute geofilter for each of them.11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, so no one ever gets hangry.” Then God LOL’d.12 The land produced vegetation; mostly ingredients for green juice and wine, TBH.13 Then there was evening, and there was morning — the third day. And God added it to his Instagram Story.14 – 15 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,” which was sus considering He gave everyone the same amount of time in a day as Beyoncé (another deity).16 Then God, a natural UX Designer, made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. And, because God has no chill, he also made the stars.17 – 18 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. Then he binge-watched The Stars on Netflix. #Sponsored #Ad19 And there was evening, and there was morning — the fourth day. And God was v tired from adulting so hard.20 God tweeted, “RT if you think I should let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky," even though He had no followers (yet).21But God created these next-level creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems IRL anyway. And God had all the feels.22Then God, woke as ever, said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth,” which was v v on brand for God.23And there was evening, and there was morning — the fifth day. And God wrote a quick essay about it on Medium.24Then, because God was in #beastmode, He said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals.” But He only selfied with the most adorbs ones.25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds. And God saw to it that these creatures would bring joy (and fear) across the land and live eternally in memes across the internet.26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may SLAAAYYYYYY over all the non-humans,” which was a pretty savage thing to say.27 So God created humankind in His own image of #squadgoals; male and female and gay and lesbian and bisexual and queer and transgender and whatever anyone wanted. He created them all equally thirsty AF.28 God blessed His fam and shouted, “YOLOOOOOOO.” And then spilled the tea about life on earth.29God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. But don’t buy too much avocado toast, or you will never be able to afford a house.” And they were shook.30 “And to all the creatures of the earth, even the internet trolls and ratchet THOTs — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And they all said, “OMG, preach!” and went to brunch.31God saw all that He had made, and He literally couldn’t even.And there was evening, and there was morning. And God was like, for heaven’s sake! This place is cray, I’m OUTTTT! ✌🌎 And he requested an Uber, and it was so.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/and-god-created-millennial-earth