#i legally have to claim at least one character in any media i really like

[qloof]

finished Bottleman DX. it's time to project (again)

[taffywabbit]

im also anti proship but calling rugrats porn drawings "child porn" really dilutes the severity of actual child porn. we shouldnt be confusing actual cp that hurts real children with just weirdos drawing porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids, the two things are not at all on the same level

ok i suppose this was inevitable, i may as well get into it.

(CW for some discussion of CSA and child pornography, obviously)

first off, "i'm also anti proship but" is a terrifying way to start your message, and to go and follow it up with some extremely common proship copypasta i've heard a million times about "taking attention/resources/severity/etc away from real CSA victims" or whatever kinda makes me wonder how "anti proship" you actually are...?

kind of the point of this whole debate is typically that "proship" folks insist that fiction, or in this case "porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids" as you put it, has no effect on reality or people's mindsets. and so-called "antis" like myself generally respond to this idea with something along the lines of "well it sure seems to affect the reality of your cock and balls", and point out how repeatedly consuming media with a particular focus or message has been shown time and time again to quantifiably influence the way people view the world around them, in ways that subsequently affect how they act, or desensitize them to things that might otherwise upset/offend them. y'know, like political propaganda! or blockbuster movies about killer sharks! obviously some people are going to be more resilient against that sort of influence when the real-world equivalent of "porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids" is something so blatantly unacceptable, and nobody is really claiming that the impact of fictional CP is "on the same level" as its IRL counterpart.

but at the very least, most people who would be considered "anti proship" WILL tell you "hey, i'm not trying to say that you jerking it to twitter porn of Gwen Tennyson or Tails or whatever is LITERALLY THE SAME as committing CSA, but it's still really fucking concerning and creepy that the majority of your sexual fixations are all specifically cutesy vulnerable cartoon characters under the age of 12, many of whom also have canonical adult designs that you conveniently avoid in favor of sexualizing the ones that are barely old enough to learn long division. you should maybe do some introspection and figure out why that is and whether or not you're really comfortable with what it implies about you. personally i know I'M not comfortable with that shit and i'm not going to keep hanging around you unless you make some serious changes." except usually in my experience the conversation ends up being a lot shorter and ends in a block pretty quickly. like i'm not a psychologist and i don't keep a bunch of studies on hand to throw at you about how fictional CP is often a factor in grooming, but i DO have a brain and can pretty clearly see when someone is rationalizing behavior that will lead them to places i'm not willing to follow.

ANYWAYS to focus more specifically on the actual reason we're talking about this (which was, to be clear, a mobile ad Tumblr served me that depicted one of the dads from Rugrats having sex with his 3yo daughter): yes, actually, that shit IS illegal to create or distribute. it's not the SAME as literal photographs of real children, OBVIOUSLY, but it's still also extremely fucked up in its own right, and any reasonable person in your life would probably stop talking to you if you told them you got off to it.

don't believe me about the legality part? check this out:

so like, I GUESS you might get some legal leeway with cub furry art or sonic porn or stuff that isn't always obvious in how much it's intended to parallel real children? if you really care? but this ad was literally multiple illustrations of a human adult man having intercourse with a human toddler. it's pornography centered around openly fetishizing the sexual assault of a child by a parent. i fail to see how referring to that in shorthand as "child porn" is inaccurate in any way that matters.

and Tumblr is a US-based company, beholden to the laws shown above, so they are at least somewhat responsible when illustrated pedophilic incest porn gets shown to thousands of their mobile app users in an ad they got paid to display. THAT was the original point i was making in my post. but thank you for trying to derail it to interrogate my "anti proship" views or whatever, i have had multiple people send me fairly nasty asks about it in the past year and you finally caught me in a moment when i was already pissed enough about something else that i felt like going off about this stuff. sorry if you actually agreed with most of this and i came off as overly rude/harsh, but if that's the case then this response is for all the other anon asks and replies i've gotten too, i guess.

now we're all clear about where i stand and i hopefully don't need to talk about this again - it's kind of a fucking bummer to think about this stuff and i've been avoiding the subject intentionally. you are always welcome to just block me if you have a problem

[pulchrasilva]

What's an anti-anti? Or an anti for that matter

Oh my friend I am so sorry to introduce you to the shitpile that is antishipping discourse

Anti is short for "antishipper", which is someone who believes certain types of ships are immoral and nobody should ship them or engage with media about them. Exactly what types of ships that includes varies (because morality will always be vague at best and you can't meaningfully categorise anything into "always good" and "always bad"), but people usually take issue with incest, ships involving one or more minors, age gaps, etc.

I consider myself a proshipper/"anti-anti" purely because I think this kind of discourse is extremely inane and potentially harmful.

Antis tend to say "problematic" ships "normalise" harmful dynamics in real life, ignoring that exploring these ideas in fiction is a safe way of engaging with darker topics and sometimes people do so to process personal trauma. Personally I've found that reading fanfiction about dark topics made me wayy more emotionally prepared to handle discussion of them in real life.

And, as I said, it's nearly impossible to draw a solid line between what should be allowed and what shouldn't be allowed. Age of consent is an arbitrary number that's chosen because legally you need a strict number if you're going to enforce the law, but a person 1 year older and 1 year younger than the age of consent aren't actually that much different. Plus the law varies from country to country, but antis tend to choose the US age of 18 because the US dominates the internet. Age-gaps between two non-minor characters get even more blurry!! And let's not forget that a ship between two men is way more likely to be flagged as pedophilia than a ship between a man and a woman. Imo if you can't make a concrete rule about it there's no point in making a rule at all.

Plus it's fiction, and not even mainstream fiction, so it's hardly gonna cause any significant shift in real life culture. These ships get criticised to hell and back in fan spaces and people get properly harassed over it, but there are plenty of professional writers portraying these things in well known media and don't get much flack for it at all - because it's way easier to tear down a fan, your equal, than a creator. It seems to me that the problem isn't really "normalising" these behaviours, because if that was the case mainstream media would be a much bigger contributor than fandom

For some reason, toxic/abusive ships are less commonly criticised despite being objectively harmful to the characters involved, and incest is the one people hate the most despite it being (imo) the one least likely to cause actual harm to the characters. Also depictions of rape and sexual abuse are usually considered off limits but you rarely get the same criticism of, say, depictions of murder. The sexual aspect of the topic seems more important than the actual harm.

AND THEN there's the fact that antis generally only argue against the ships that make them personally feel uncomfortable. Different people have different boundaries for what they consider too far, and I lose my shit every time I see antis shipping something I know other antis claim is the devil. And often the whole thing gets coopted by someone who doesn't like people shipping characters A and B because they ship B and C. ("You can't ship these unrelated characters because they're sibling-coded which makes the ship basically incest" is something I've seen a truly bonkers amount of times)

So yeah. That's the whole mess. Like I said I dont really care about whether or not antis follow me? I'm proship purely because I don't think this is a conversation that needs to be had at all. Like who cares But, go wild, romanticise the hell out of the most repulsive things!! It's nobody else's business but yours. But if I see a mutual who followed me first reblogging "any proshippers who follow me should explode and die teehee ^-^" ONE MORE TIME I might actually explode

[sparkymediaseminar]

Sailing the High Seas

Order vs. Chaos, Control vs. Freedom. It's a constant battle that's been waged throughout the entirety of human history, and it bleeds directly into the digital world.

Though seriously, isn't it so creepy that all the corporations can now just straight up sell your own personal information? They'll try and justify it by saying its to make advertisements more tailored to you, but does having more specific ads interrupt your YouTube videos really worth it at all? Does that make it worth getting your info sold to well, anyone? Woo, thank God I use an Ad Block.

Data collection has had it's fair share of unintentional side effects, though. One notable case would have to be perils of kid's content on YouTube, with children being exposed to inappropriate [and potentially traumatizing] videos thanks to YouTube's algorithm. Yeah, remember Elsagate? Oh geez, those horrors give me the shakes. YouTube has tried to counter this issue in various ways, such as with the creation of the YouTube Kids app and the changes that occurred in late 2019, but with limited success. If anything, the attempt to segregate certain videos as "kids" content is extremely misguided and unreliable, due to the unpredictable nature of user-generated content. It's not uncommon for a video to get tagged as "for kid's" solely because it features cartoon characters, even if the video itself isn't meant for kids [such as say, a funny YouTube Poop that features characters from Disney's Robin Hood performing a satanic ritual].

The way that data has been handled over the past decade is already worrying on it's own, and it's not like people aren't aware of it. Why else would Ad Blocks, VPNs, and "safe" browsers like Firefox become so popular in the first place? Even if most people are okay with using a browser like Google Chrome that saps data like no tomorrow, it doesn't change the fact that we don't like having our privacy being invalidated. Or at least, we claim we don't like that. We might be partially aware of the fact that corporations control us, but we also find ourselves using their services regardless because of how deeply integrated they've been into our society. Regardless of how many alternatives to Chrome are out there, Chrome is still the number one browser/search engine, and will remain as most people's go-to method for looking up funny cat videos.

But even if most people will just roll with things as normal, there's also a few who won't mind living the underground lifestyle. The people who couldn't care less about what the corpos tell them, and will gladly download as many low-resolution bootleg anime episodes as they please. Yeah, we're gonna talk about pirating.

To say that online piracy is rampant would be an understatement. According to this article, there are 3.1 BitTorrent downloads for every piece of media that's purchased legally. Why would people choose to pirate, anyway? Don't they respect the law? The might or might not, but not everyone has convenient access to quality entertainment. Some people are just really poor [especially those living in countries that aren't so well off, like in Eastern Europe], and many kids and teens don't have their own credit card. So of course, they'll seek any means necessary to get the goods.

But there's another side to piracy that's worth acknowledging. Some people just want to preserve media the best way they can, and not everything is guaranteed to be in safe hands. You know all those original shows that get pumped out on streaming services all the time? The ones that don't have much in the way of physical media releases to back them up? If one of those streaming services were to shut down at any time for whatever reason, then all the content on there would be lost for good. Unless it were pirated, however! If it's been pirated, that means the media still exists on the internet and is not gone for good. As long as media isn't relegated exclusively to a single service, it's long-term survival is much more strongly guaranteed. This goes for obscure pieces of older media that aren't featured on any mainstream services, which would be referred to as abandonware. If it's circulated around in various unofficial online databases [such as the Internet Archive], it's essentially immortalized and will be much less likely to fade into complete obscurity than if restricted to physical copies that decay over time. Remember the countless silent films that were lost in warehouse fires during the 1920s and 30s? Yeah, just keep that in mind.

Sources: "An update on kids and data protection on YouTube" (Sept. 4, 2019). YouTube Official Blog. URL: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/09/an-update-on-kids.html

Alexandre Mateus, John Peha, “Quantifying Global Transfers of Copyrighted Content Using BitTorrent,” Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, 2011. URL: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/business/copyright-content-bittorrent#

[keyboardsmashdmhtmdcmdcdm]

Rant about Morgana Part 2

I ran out of room. I wanted to talk about Morgana treatment of people from magic accepting culture and societies as well as other magic users. I forgot what I was going to say so I hope this makes sense. Morgana does not seem to respect magic or other magic users very much. She condemns magic users that are her allies to loosing their magic in canon as well as attacking one of the apparently few cities where magic is legal as well as never really fighting for magic as she presents herself as. I see Morgouse as the one out of the two of them actually fighting for magic because as seen in canon and deleted scenes she wants freedom and love as well as respects magic. I also have a hard time seeing Morgana as a true high priestess. Let me explain before you get mad please. High priestesses are trained from birth and are so elite that many do not make it through the training and become bendrui. Morgana was gone for one year with her sister who loves her so much she may be blinded by love and will give her anything, while I do believe she went through every process and is in every legal or religious term a high priestess I do not think she has anywhere near enough training or knowledge to be one. Though she still has more knowledge and training than Merlin and the show is from his perspective so she would truly seem like a high priestess to the audience, but maybe not to any other priestesses if there were any others. On that subject Merlin had no teacher and taught himself though he had a lot of instinctual knowledge (he knew things like the dragon language on his own as well as can just use powerful magic) he was completely removed from most magical communities as well as any possible culture as a dragonlord. Though it does explain the lack of magic knowledge of creatures, culture and spells until it is onscreen and explained. As well as his family sending him into the heart of Camelot. Though in their defense it is shown that Camelot is not even the most dangerous kingdom for a magic user to be with places like Sarrum's kingdom still a horrible idea. (Though i have some story ideas that can explain it.) Another thing I wanted to talk about was Morganas necklace. Why does she a high priestess have a druid symbol necklace, is it to make her more appealing to them or is it to prove to the impressionable ones that she is on there side or does she just believe it is a symbol of magic because as far as I remember high priestesses have there own symbol the tree like the one they made the staff from on the isle of the blessed. Though please correct me if I am wrong but I think trees may also be sacred to druids and possibly other magic users so she may be comparing it like they are not so different. Morgana also has no problem attacking the city of Helva to kill at least one person though I wonder if she left any survivors, because Alator said Merlin had a army and if there were survivors they may still be alive. Also I think people forget that Morgana is a rich white woman that has a seemingly endless supply of expensive dresses and jewelry when she probably knew the taxes were hard to live with in Camelot and before she has magic is one of the most privileged characters and then is a high priestess so she then has a very high status in the magic community. She is not afraid to weaponize this against Gwen and Merlin as well as many unnamed characters. To her justice for magic is just the cover to her ambition and vengeance. She is like someone who says she fights for more widespread knowledge of medicine then you find out that she is a anti-vaxer who respond to people pointing this out by saying something like my culture is not you costume or one of the women who claim feminism is a disease and women should spend all their time in the kitchen while they have a huge social media platform they are always on and don't acknowledge that if they spent all their time cooking and cleaning they would not have time for social media and most likely said "fragile women" would not be aloud near the internet. Sorry bit extreme.

[alexanderzeegreat]

Are You Confused About Ageplay/Regression?

(Don’t Worry, So Are Lotsa People)

Hello, friends! I wanted to write a thingy for those new to the world of ageplay/regression; because when I first started to explore it, I quickly realized I had no terminology or understanding of the complications of this world. I hope this gives some degree of clarity to anyone feeling confused.

The first important thing to say is this is a consensual world comprised entirely of legal adults. The definition of a legal, consenting adult depends on national/local laws, but they should govern your interactions 100%. While there are undoubtedly littles/regressors who are minors (I was one once!), those legally defined as minors should not interact with legal adults in ageplay/regression activities (and vice versa, obvz!).

It seems to me there are three basic groups that I can use to describe ageplay/regression; I don’t think these groups are discreet—there is fluidity among each one, so someone who heavily identifies with Group Two, for example, may also find connections with parts of an identity of Group One or Three. These groups cross all boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, etc and are not confined by monoliths or binaries. This is a world of freedom, experimentation, fluidity, and play inside and outside of the self, a place where trans/bi/lesbian/gay/asexual/queer/intersex, etc are welcome.

GROUP ONE: primarily defined by individuals who adopt an age other (usually younger) than their own to play a role. In this role, the ageplay individual may (or may not) experiment with sexual play and all attendant idiosyncrasies and kinks attached to it, such as (but not limited to), dominance/submission, puppy play, diapers, gay/straight sex, discipline, chastity, etc. The differentiating feature of this group is that their ageplay is voluntary, discreet, and often a means to an end (for example, playing out a scene). There is usually no larger connection to the play age other than the taking on of a role. The people in this group are valid and deserve to be treated with respect.

GROUP TWO: those in this group are defined by their voluntary regression (as opposed to the playing of role) in which they creatively and seamlessly embody a younger version of themselves (as opposed to a character—though the regressed self MIGHT carry a different name). Folks in this group have a profound and meaningful connection to their little side, sometimes referred to as an “inner child.” As opposed to those in the first group, their regression is usually (though not always) disconnected from their sexuality and focused instead on nurturing, play, and freedom. Group two littles/middles/regressors sometimes (though not always) have a caregiver who watches over them, and this can sometimes (though not always) take the form of a parental dynamic which might (though not always) include rules, discipline, and (non-sexual) punishments. This is the group I most closely identify with, and thus, the one I feel like I have the best handle on. The people in this group are valid and deserve to be treated with respect.

GROUP THREE: people in this group are usually comprised of those who (mostly) involuntarily regress to a younger age or for whom regression is neither roleplay nor a means of experimentation/play but instead a lived-life reality often connected to trauma, abuse, and abandonment during their chronological childhood. For those in this group, regression can be (though isn’t always) therapeutic, or, at the very least, a coping mechanism for the difficulties associated with recovery. Because those who are in group three have relatively little control over their regression—and because they fully and completely inhabit the mind of a child—they need protection from triggers for trauma and from the dissonances of the adult world that might frighten or (re)traumatize them. This protection comes often in the form of a caregiver but can also include a community of other regressors who create strict content rules and police them from the outside. The people in this group are valid and deserve to be treated with respect.

USEFUL TERMINOLOGY

DNI: Do Not Interact—often used by those in Group Three (or any other individual for whom ageplay/regression is inherently nonsexual) who engage with tumblr and other social media through involuntary regression and who seek to avoid triggers that might (re)traumatize or expose them to material not suitable for their regressed age. If you accidentally repost or respond to a DNI post and you are asked to stop, please apologize and do so.

NSFW: Not Safe For Work—used to indicate material that crosses over into the adult world; think anything PG13 and up. If it is something you’d be embarrassed to share with a coworker or colleague, it is NSFW. More importantly for this world, if it is material you would not show a child (or an adult regressed as a child), it is NSFW.

ABDL: Adult Baby/Diaper Lover—usually not disarticulated, though there are some Adult Babies who do not wear diapers and some Diaper Lovers who identify outside the realms of baby/toddlerhood. These would be individuals who define their little /regressed side as baby-early toddler and for whom the wearing of diapers is integral to their role/regression. The reasons or meaning of the diaper can be radically different depending on the individual and can run the spectrum from sexualized to punitive to comforting to conventional baby attire. Some ABDLs are also individuals who routinely struggle with incontinence either in their play/regressed self or in their adult world.

Little—any individual who identifies their role/inner age roughly between infant and school-aged; this is a pretty broad term, and I have seen it used to describe the ages 0-11, though the sweet spot tends to be 2-6.

Middle—a bit confusing, tbh: I used to think a middle was anyone who did not identity as a baby/toddler, but now it seems to describe ageplay/regression from preteen to teenager, let’s say ages 8-17, though I do think the sweet spot is more 12-14.

CG: Caregiver—any individual whose sole function is to provide care, affection, attention, and love to a little/middle/regressor. This can include the terminology/relationship of family, such as daddy, mommy, uncle, brother, aunt, etc. Or it can be non-defined and amorphous. Sometimes abbreviated “CG,” a caregiver relationship may or may not include discipline/punishment but is mostly non-disciplinary and inherently nonsexual.

DDLB/DDLG & MDLB/MDLG: Daddy (Mommy) Dom/Little Boy (Girl)—used to describe a dynamic whereby the caregiver of a little/middle/regressor mirrors some of the cadences of a Dom/Sub relationship, though this can be as mild as a conventional parental relationship—where there are rules, discipline, and punishments—to something hypersexualized and more in line with hardcore dominance and submission dynamics.

CGLRE: Caregiver Little Regressor—like DD(M)/LB(G) only completely nonsexual, though what that means can be contested. For example, some CGLRE folx see the imposition of any kind of discipline/punishment/rules on a little/regressor as inherently sexual (even parental discipline) and would, therefore, not include that dynamic as part of an authentic CGLRE relationship.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this list is by no means meant to be exhaustive and is only one boy’s understanding of a very vast and intricate dynamic, so friendly amendments, comments, suggestions, and clarifications are very welcome. NOT WELCOME: those who already harbor generalized prejudice or judgmental views about ageplay and regression; claims of any kind of authenticity or authority over what being little or regressed REALLY is/means; vitriol, hate, judgmental/self-righteousness, and other general meanie headedness. Such folx will be immediately and cheerfully blocked. I don’t/won’t listen to any of that noise, mkay?  

The important thing is—no matter where you fit (or don’t) in this list/world, you treat those outside (and inside) your group with compassion, empathy, respect, and kindness. I will close by saying littles/regressors/middles/CGs/daddies/mommies are some of the nicest, sweetest, generous, and loving people I’ve ever met, and I am proud to be a part of this world <3

Please share this with anyone you think might need it!

Love, Zander

[desidarling123]

FACT CHECK: Did JKR sue people for writing Wolfstar fanfiction? [FALSE] [with sources]

So, if you're at all active in the HP fandom, and ESPECIALLY if you're on TikTok, you've likely come across a post or video claiming the following:

JKR LITERALLY SUED PEOPLE OVER WOLFSTAR FANFICTION! AND THAT'S ALSO WHY SHE MADE REMADORA CANON -- TO SPITE THE SHIPPERS!

I'm not sure who first started this claim or how its various permutations grew, but it spread at the speed of light across social media. This widely-circulated meme summarizes it:

For the LONGEST time, I didn't know what to make of it. The claims were vague enough that they seemed like they could be true -- after all, JKR is a megacunt and a renowned TERF. You don't need to fact-check either of those things.

But then -- for the first time ever -- I came across a video on TikTok claiming that what was being said was NOT true, and that it was being used SPECIFICALLY to stir up drama. Which was... crazy, to say least.

And that led me, well, to do my own research & fact-check. I've taken the original video's structure and added some exposition as well.

So here's the truth:

That 2003 case the above meme refers to? Not even REMOTELY what the situation was about. Hell, not even CLOSE.

In 2003, JKR sent a cease-and-desist letter to an explicit adult HP fan fiction website, called "Restricted Section". Here's the letter:

As the above letter states, the site was sent a notice because of overarching concerns that minors would accidentally stumble onto the sexually explicit content the site hosted after searching up 'Harry Potter'.

The hand-wringing over minor safety probably seems dated now, but it was, in fact, standard practice in the early 2000s - sexually explicit fan content was being removed across the internet for those exact concerns. In fact, just the year before, in 2002, fanfiction.net was purged of NC-17 content (which would happen one more time, in 2012).

I feel ridiculous stating it, but just to be clear -- in the above letter and all my subsequent research, there's NO evidence she went after Wolfstar -- or any ship, for that matter -- directly.

In fact, the letter goes an extra mile to declare that "our clients (JKR) make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans", but that, "there is plainly a very real risk that impressionable children... will be directed... to your sexually explicit website".

But that leads in nicely to the next point -- the website DIDN'T shut down, as per the letter's request. Instead, they added password protection to ensure only members older than 17 were accessing it.

OK, but why did JKR and Warner Bros go after this site in the first place? Most believe it was because of a widely-publicized article in THE SCOTSMAN that talked about the website. But, once again, this article doesn't go after Wolfstar in particular -- it only goes after Harry x Draco and Harry x Snape. The inclusion of latter was arguably what generated the biggest controversy -- the pairing of Harry, a fictional minor, with an adult character, in slash stories largely written by adult heterosexual women, was not one that could be cast in a good light to the general public. It's hardly a surprise JKR's lawyers sought to do something before the controversy got out of hand and worried parents started to make calls.

What I said before still goes, though. The legal core of the issue was ALWAYS to do NOT with the ships, but the EXPLICIT NATURE of the work -- and the (very real) concerns that the series' then-mostly-under-18 readership could find said works with very little as far as guardrails were concerned. (I know, because I was one of those kids)

TLDR; JKR did NOT sue people over Wolfstar fanfiction, she sent a cease-and-desist notice to a website that was not taking adequate precautions to prevent minors from accessing the explicit adult content on the site.

To be clear -- this is not meant to be a statement on what to ENJOY in your fandom ships. You can ship Wolfstar, Remadora, both, neither -- it really doesn't matter. I think the fandom is critical enough of the author to have reclaimed her work on our own terms, and people should be allowed to just, idk enjoy things.

But propagating straight-up falsehoods is dangerous, especially when it comes at the expense of 1) a safe fandom environment (see: the current fandom ship wars between Remadora and Wolfstar, which are difficult to watch) and 2) serves as a distraction from the ACTUAL garbage JKR engages in (of which there is plenty -- no need to make it up lol).

Also, truth be told -- inter-fandom ship wars don't generally add anything productive to the necessary conversations that need to be had about her works. The thought that dashing fan ships was a key motivator in her writing rather than, I don't know, plot concerns, is ludicrous on face, and gives fans a level of control over the original writer that just... doesn't exist IRL? And certainly didn't back then?

And again -- the books would have been VERY different series, plot-wise, if Sirius Black HAD lived. Him being in a relationship with Remus, confirmed or implied, has no relation to that decision.

If we have talk Harry Potter, I'd rather talk about just about anything else -- the racism, the misogyny, the lack of any sort of organic queer rep and JKR's inability to just own up to the problems in her works. But the minutiae of ship wars -- and the inevitable stream of disinformation that comes with it, sans any kind of concrete evidence -- is one I'd prefer to pass on.

SOURCES:

Cease-and-Desist Letter Copy: http://archive.is/HTLsq

THE SCOTSMAN Article: http://archive.is/VdEaY

Restricted Section Updates Page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030815233612/http://www.restrictedsection.org/news.php

BONUS: The original TikTok video I came across whose structure and sources I shamelessly stole to read and build out my argument. I copied a lot of their wording because it explained it better than I could, you just get some bonus snarky commentary from yours truly

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie ���copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

This is gonna be a bit long.

Ok, so I'm betting the "can't believe 30yo's still play with dolls" person is a troll. But at the same time, I've heard, and seen minors say that exact shit about basically anything, and thinking that for some reason they're the driving force behind any fandom, or bigger franchise.

Arguments like: "Fandom is for minors" Fandom was created by adults for adults. Minors are basically a fringe demographic, especially before the internet. No one gave a shit about minors, because adults were the ones creating the content, and other adults would pay for said content and buy merch. 90% of fan content is made by adults, or hosted by sites owned by adults. Literally no aspect of fandom was created by minors, nor has any niche ever been made just by minors for minors.

"Minors are the focus demographic." That isn't even true for media made for children's TV. You think minors are the demographic for kid's cartoons? Nope, it's the parents, or the people who're the legal guardians, because they're the people with money, and are gonna buy merch, and let their child watch it. That's why content like Monster High was changed so drastically, because adults didn't like the look of the dolls, so it was changed, which tanked numbers for people buying the dolls.

"It's so weird when adults ship minor characters" Who do you think wrote said minor-characters? All of YA, and teen novels with romance was probably written by someone in their 30's, or older. Maybe some in their 20's, but that's a minority. Any minors writing books, or something, and having it published officially. Nah. "Dolls are for children." Most collector dolls, which includes BJD's, are literally so out of most minors price range, I really wanna see a minor get enough money, without asking their parents or family, and buy a doll for 200+ usd.

Hell, dolls have a huge subculture of adult collectors, and you can especially see that with old dolls, or traditional dolls. In some cultures dolls weren't even viewed as children's toys until much later, because the dolls were ritualistic pieces, or decorations.

Personal anecdote about how weird minors are in hobby/fandom spaces: I was in a hobby server where we had an NSFW channel, the admin only added the "you confirm you wanna see NSFW" label you can use on discord, even though several people (adults) asked specifically to have a role for age, and if any minors lied they'd be kicked for faking their age.

One minor, 15, was made mod bc he gave a boost to the server, he got mad at the demand for kicking if you lied about the age thing, and he literally admitted to being in the NSFW channel, and some adult interacted with him there. When several of us made a stink about it bc, "WHAT THE FUCK THAT'S A MINOR IN A CHANNEL WITH NSFW CONTENT" and said we wanted the channel locked, and the adult interacting him to AT LEAST be put in timeout, admin didn't react/refused. (The adult interacting with the minor in NSFW didn't show any NSFW content, but just made a dirty joke about bodypillows, but all of us adults, and even some other minors, agreed this still wasn't ok.)

Minor-mod then claimed he, and other minors had a right to be in NSFW bc "We see NSFW everywhere anyway" which obvs many thought was a shit excuse, and that he shouldn't be a mod, because that was fucking creepy. And then he even made the argument it's the adults fault for making having spaces for adults, and that it didn't matter anyway. Most adults even said that this wasn't OK, made many of us feel unsafe, minors included, because it's literally so fucking icky for a child to try and be in NSFW spaces, and many adults actually have a hard line of not interacting with minors online. Said it's our problem if we feel uncomfortable, and we had no right to ban minors for accessing adult spaces, even when people pointed out it literally says that the NSFW label discord has, mentions 18+ somewhere, so he was literally breaking the rules by accessing it after seeing the screen.

Anyway, this went on for a long while, and many adults, AND minors, and several of the mods expressed their disgust at having this kid as a mod, and especially with those opinions, and were legit asking if the kid could be de-modded, but no dice. Admin didn't want to hurt the kids feelings, so the kid stuck around, and several of us left. (I literally have the screenshots of most of this drama saved, not all of it, but like 85% of it, and I've showed it to so many people, and everyone was disgusted by this bullshit.)

~Anonymous

[wirewitchviolet]

A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.

[lastsonlost]

The star begins a libel trial against a U.K. tabloid that called him a "wife beater." No matter the verdict, he's destined to lose.

If there's a single word to describe Johnny Depp's status at the moment, I'd go with zugzwang, which chess aficionados know to be the moment when a player basically gets cornered into making a move that will inevitably lead to an even more inferior position. On Tuesday, the star actor appeared in a London courtroom to take on the U.K. publisher of The Sun for characterizing him as a "wife beater" in the print edition of an April 27, 2018, online article.  Unfortunately for Depp, it seems to be a defamation trial that's a no-win situation.

Depp appears to think that success is achievable at a proceeding that will last several weeks and feature all sorts of inside details about his life plus celebrity friends including Paul Bettany and Winona Ryder. Depp is claiming that during his tumultuous marriage to Amber Heard between 2015 through 2017, he didn't actually throw a phone at her, slap her across the face, and grab her by the hair, as she once testified in a deposition during one of the nastiest divorces in Hollywood history. Perhaps Depp will play audio tapes in an effort to claim his ex-wife was the abusive one in this stormy relationship. It won't matter because there's really no reversing the damage that Depp has incurred these past few years.

That should have become obvious on June 26 when it was revealed that Disney was working on a new Pirates of the Caribbean, this time featuring a female-fronted cast led by Margot Robbie. In other words, at the exact moment when a U.K. judge was deciding on whether to actually proceed with Depp's libel suit after the actor's attorneys breached a court order by failing to turn over a series of text messages concerning the procurement of drugs, Depp may have lost his most lucrative role. A source tells The Hollywood Reporter that Jerry Bruckheimer would like to at least nod to the popularity of the Captain Jack Sparrow character in the coming film if the controversies die down, but at this point, Disney is resistant. Depp is too controversial. (Disney didn’t respond for comment.)

So Depp will pursue a favorable verdict and a nominal damages award from a trial that's playing out under English defamation standards — in other words, where the burden of truth is on the news publisher to establish rather than Depp. Meanwhile, over the next few weeks, amid an international pandemic, Depp will surely incur additional reputational harm from these prying court proceedings, the impetus for which was a column questioning J.K. Rowling's defense of Depp being cast in the adaptation of her book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's hard to sue one's way out of controversy.

Given this situation, it's no wonder Hollywood insiders are increasingly puzzled over Depp's moves. I spoke to several industry attorneys and publicists, all of whom offered some variation on the theme that the public would likely have forgotten Depp's years-old troubles but for court actions that keep reminding everyone.

“One of the things you’re always balancing is, how do you respond to accusation? Do you add more fuel to the fire or let it dissipate?” asks Howard Bragman, a longtime crisis manager in the entertainment industry.

Says Neville Johnson, an attorney who has previously brought suits against tabloids but questions the star plaintiff's wisdom here: “Depp doesn’t need the money [from any damages award] and it is not going to enhance his reputation.”

***

How did Depp find himself at the point of zugzwang? More and more, one has got to question Depp's reliance on attorney Adam Waldman. Depp has many attorneys, and the others seem to be the ones actually doing the hard work in court, but Waldman has become Depp's mouthpiece and also looks to be the lawyer who has emerged as the star's svengali of sorts.

Who is Waldman?

A search on Google (where he referred this reporter instead of agreeing to an interview) yields some clues, though hardly anything definitive. Unlike most attorneys, Waldman maintains no bio page these days. A few years back, Waldman's D.C.-based Endeavor Group did have a working website, but no longer. A trip to the Internet Archive reveals that Waldman once took credit for overseeing "all corporate aspects" of the landmark antitrust trial United States v. Microsoft, being the "principal architect of several ground-breaking initiatives" including the Center for Global Development, and even predicting the 2009 financial crisis with a "seminal law review article" authored all the way back in 1993. That would be when he was a student at American University, which did indeed confirm his graduation in 1995.

Waldman, according to reputable press reports, seems to have been involved in various dealings with the Kremlin, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He had a lucrative ($40,000 per month) lobbying contract with Deripaska, was registered as an agent for the Russian government, visited Assange nine times in one year at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, apparently in connection with efforts to strike a deal with the DOJ, and more. His associations have become fodder for intrigue among reporters and lawmakers even if there’s a lack of public evidence of anything more than Waldman having a talent for landing recurring, if minor, roles in real-life Russian political dramas.

I'd say that Waldman's foray on the periphery of the industry hardly matters, except that it appears Depp is publicly burning bridges with the sort of abandon that one hardly ever sees among big Hollywood stars. Depp's recent legal pursuits include battling his former money managers over the disposition of hundreds of millions of dollars; splitting with longtime transactional attorney Jake Bloom; and, of course, continuing to face off against Heard again and again and again, including in a separate defamation suit against her over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. That latter case is currently scheduled for trial in Virginia in January 2021.

That's a lot of legal work, and Waldman appears to have taken on a central role. As Stephen Rodrick put it in an often-cited Rolling Stone article, "Waldman seems to have convinced Depp that they are freedom fighters taking on the Hollywood machine rather than scavengers squabbling over the scraps of a fortune squandered."

Waldman is also conducting a public experiment on social media. In a nutshell, do tactics of preaching to a choir of a small number of Twitter accounts achieve anything outside of politics? Most attorneys don't pick fights with the media during a big case, particularly in the weeks before trial. Not Waldman. For weeks, he's been goading reporters at The New York Times who apparently are investigating him, and he's been whipping his followers into a frenzy with attacks on Rodrick, Variety ("Saudi Arabia's Variety"), THR ("too much corruption") and other journalists and news publications. (That said, Waldman may not be above going to his own favored media outlets. Depp's attorneys have been accused in court papers of leaking to outlets like The Blast, which seems to be to Depp what Fox News is to Trump.) He's also litigating on Twitter, presenting evidence procured from Depp's cases, and overall, exhibiting highly unusual behavior for a working attorney.

To what end? That one is very hard to answer. But if anyone in Hollywood is ready to take on "fake news," the ticket of Depp-Waldman should be deemed real contenders.

***

In the era of #MeToo, allegations of misconduct get attention — and deservedly so — but some newsrooms have traditionally made a distinction between behavior in the workplace and domestic conduct, with the latter being perceived as tabloid fodder. This time, though, an ugly divorce proceeding has transformed into something quite more.

Alas, the trial of John Christopher Depp II v. News Group Newspapers Ltd has now begun.

On July 7, Depp himself took the witness stand and accused Heard of being sociopathic, a narcissist, and completely emotionally dishonest. He insisted her "sick" claims of abuse are untrue. And in opening statements, his attorney David Sherborne said, "This is not a case about money. It is about vindication."

Depp, in fighting a battle against an unflattering headline, is merely going to draw more attention to The Sun's accusation that he's a "wife beater," especially once Heard gets on the witness stand. At the end of it all, no matter the verdict, this trial will likely do nothing to tamp down the controversies that have tarnished his career. He's elevated a tabloid columnist's random musing into something that's going to be covered by serious news outlets for weeks, months, years on end.

For that, Johnny Depp should regain his senses and fire his lawyers.

Vindication ain't possible. The damage is done. That's the only thing a successful libel claim shows.

__________

What kind of Weinstein bullshit is this?  So what, If he gives up on getting Justice for what hes been through Hollywood might throw him some crumbs? 

JUST SHUT UP AND SUFFER IN SILENCE!  ACCEPT THE LIES THAT WERE SPREAD ABOUT YOU! LET YOUR ABUSER WIN!

 I wonder if this clown would tell metoo victims not to get Justice?

[leomitchellart]

So… about this latest Inktober controversy….

Time to begrudgingly chuck in my two penneth… (Remeber you can always press “J” to skip this post altogether)

As most of you may or may not know, Alphonso Dunn released a Youtube video wherein he publicly accused Jake Parker, and creator of the Inktober challenge, of plagiarising his book. Both of these men are public figures, artists specialising in pen & ink. In the video Dunn looks at the preview pages and flip through footage of Parker’s “Inktober All Year Round” and says they draw many similarities in the illustrations, language and layout that he used in his own book, “Pen & Ink Drawing”. Parker’s book was set to this month. Hense why Dunn only used footage and not a physical copy.

Since the video’s release, the art community has been very spilt down the middle. The book’s publisher has halted the launch of Parker’s book until the matter can be investigated. Even DeviantArt cancelled their own Inktober event thing (I’ll admit I don’t keep up with these things DA keeps doing). Parker has since released a statement in the matter. Now it’s up to the courts to decide what’s happening next. The video itself is an hour long, but it’s crucial to see it yourself. 

People are, understandably, outraged after seeing it. This seems like a shitty thing to rip-off Dunn - not to mention stupid. Since Dunn is the more popular pen & ink artist with more social media followers and name recognition. Many have called to boycott inktober and condemn Parker. I’ll admit, I was right alongside them at first, at least for feeling outraged. The similarities are there. But if YMS’s Kimba video has taught me anything, it’s that, even if an accusation of plagiarism may be obvious at a cursory glance, sometimes it’s important to take a more critical eye and do more research to learn that things aren’t as cut and dry as they first seem. If there’s a lesson I can take away from the internet as a whole, it’s that no one thinks about the consequences of mob mentality.

The most common defence of Parker is that because they’re both books about pen and ink drawing, then they’re inevitably going to be similar. I’ll admit that, when you pick-up so many art books, a lot of them will cover the same basic grounds of materials, tutorials, strokes, techniques etc. The parts about rendering textures on spheres and cubes isnt new. Look up “texture study” and you’ll see so many examples of artists rendering these kinds of things digitally. I’ve also noticed a common theme of people more formally educated in art pointing out how none of these are original. Everything down to the steps and illustrations are things they’ve learned from years ago. Since I'm a pen & ink artist, inspired by my love of comics, I have quite a few books about inking: Dunn’s included. I own both his books and still highly recommend them. I didn't even preorder Parker’s book. Ironically because I didn't think it could offer anything new that my other books hadn’t already.

While Ethan Becker took the time to cross-examine Dunn and Parker’s books with several others, there weren’t many of the ones I actually owned. So I looked to my shelves to see what I could find. Books like:

“The Art of Comic Book Inking” by Gary Martin & Steve Rude

“How Comics Work” by Dave Gibbons & Tim Pilcher

“The DC Comics guide to Inking Comics” by Klaus Janson

“Making Comics” by Scott McCloud

“Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics”

I’m sure there’s plenty more examples out there. I was planning to go through all of these and take pictures. But ultimately that’s not the core point of these post. Plus it would’ve taken WAY too long and this post itself, is long enough.

Of course, none of the them are 100% close to Dunn’s in the way they’re displayed. Not as close as Parker’s could be considered. That being said, I know Dunn is trying to claim that he invented these techniques. The nucleus of the issue is how similar they are in terms of order and how these pages are displayed. Some I can chock-up to standard practice, while others seem more coincidental.

If there’s one thing I’m adamant about, it’s that I think that Dunn should’ve messaged Parker first before making the accusation public. Some try to dispute that this would've made it easier for Dunn to be “silenced”, whatever that means; but that sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Ideally, you confront him about it in private, if he makes any threats or blows you off, get your lawyer on the phone and then make the video. Not only is it the more civil thing to do - but it’s the smarter thing to do. This is a serious legal matter, not just internet drama. While I’m sure Dunn had no intention of tearing Parker down or getting a mob onto him, that’s unfortunately what’s happened. A backlash both from the general artisan community and several companies. Wherein it was left to Parker himself to make this an official legal matter. If Parker’s found not guilty, then this could easily leave the gate open for him to sue Dunn for damages, loss of revenue, defamation of character or whatever else, should he see fit. As could the publishers, given how this affected their sales. Companies responded to the accusation of the video alone, before an investigation could be launched. Sure, it wouldn't be “acting the bigger man” but he’d be well within his right to do it. Dunn showed that Jake has mentioned him before, shown admiration for his career and referenced him in other posts. If it comes to light in court, that Dunn is even cited as an inspiration or source in the book itself, then it’s case closed. 

Then there’s the other possibility that Parker might not have done this on his own, but that he has a team behind the book. If that’s the case, the most I can accuse Parker of is being a hack. I worry Dunn has kneecapped himself for just how badly he’s handled this situation. Made worse by him not having an actual physical copy to assess and just had footage of preview pages to go on. So far, the circumstances don’t seem on his favour. 

I don’t think ill of Dunn. I do think he believes he’s been wronged and no malice in his intentions. I just think he’s made some critical errors on how to handled this. As for Parker himself, I couldn't give a donkey’s doo-dah about him. I’m sure you could accuse me of playing devil’s advocate earlier, but to me, he was the guy who released the annual prompt list. If it really does turn out that he’s a plagiarist and had malicious intent, then fuck ‘im. I never regarded him as an inspiration of mine or paid much attention to him outside of that. It was the community that made Inktober what it is. I’ve never met Parker. Maybe he’s a cool guy? Maybe he’s a bellend? I don’t know.

Granted this isn't the first time Parker has proved himself to be a controversial figure: - Last year people were upset about him trademarking (not copywriting, as many have erroneously claimed) the word “Inktober” and some artists were stopped from selling their related work or zines. Parker would issue a statement: claiming the takedowns were a mistake of “overzealous lawyers” and it’s just a matter of the logo being trademarked. People can sell their Inktober works and even mention they are Inktober-related. Just not use the official logo. On the one hand, from a business standpoint, I get it. It’s the bare minimum you need to do to protect your IP, especially when you have a store. BUT, like most people, I don’t like how, what’s intended as a community challenge, has slowly become more of a brand associated with one man. Hardly a surprise it left a bad taste in so many people’s mouths. But, since it doesn't actually effect anyone’s ability to take part in the challenge, outside of personal principle, I went ahead with it the previous year. 

 - The year before, when asked if one can do Inktober digitally, Parker said the following:

I know some are still bitter about that, but speaking as someone who inks traditionally and digitally, this came across as needless whinging and blowing things out of proportion. Claiming that Jake had derided digital artists and said they were invalid etc etc. Take it from me, challenging yourself to try out different methods to ink traditionally can greatly improve the work you do digitally. It’s like how learning traditional fundamentals of art can still be applied to digital. Plus he never said “No.” he just gave valid reasons about how it makes it a different experience. That said, if you’re someone who can’t afford any kind of inking equipment or pens and only have a selected application to draw on - then none of this applies to you. Just the aforementioned few who took it upon themselves to get angry over nothing. Recently I’ve heard from subscribers of his newsletter that he’s now embraced the idea of people doing inktober digitally, to the point of selling digital brushes for inktober. I’m sure some will call this “backsliding” or “money grubbing” because people aren’t allowed to change their minds or update their statements.

For weeks I’ve been torn on what to do, not being able to solidify one stance over another. One minute I thought #JusticeForAlphonsoDunn then I wonder “Wait maybe I should look again?” to “But wait, those are way too similar!” Having splinters in my arse from sitting on the fence for so long. The longer this went on, however, I began to realise that I can’t take one stance over another. This case is far too muddy and complicated. I don’t have enough sufficient knowledge or evidence. Nor do any of you. We literally only have Dunn’s video to go on. While it’s a good start, it’s not enough to be taken 100% as gospel when it’s the only thing to hand. 

As previously mentioned, a lot of artists have decided to not take part in Inktober at all, or follow different prompt lists. That’s completely fine. A lot of them are based around a specific theme: halloween, kinky stuff, bears, transformers, OCs, Disney or whatever. That has massive appeal. I just can’d do it myself. I prefer the focus on random words, rather than all centred on a single subject; allowing me to be creative with my ideas and execution. I actually did try to make a list of my own random words. Problem is, I worried that because I was choosing my own, I might be subconsciously bias towards certain prompts and not truly challenging myself. Even narrowing down my options was taking too long. In the end…. I’ve decided to just do the official prompts again this year.

For me, that’s what it ultimately came down to. TIME. It’s the middle of September. I can’t afford to wait for the court case to be settled. No other prominent artists I respect have released their own prompt lists. I know there’s been some shitty people who are condemning this choice. Attacking others, accusing them of supporting plagiarism, looking to block anyone who does the official prompts. Even trying to make this a racial issue. Just…. no. 

If someone doesn’t want to take part in Inktober, that’s fine. If someone wants to do the official prompts, that’s fine. If someone wants to do their own prompts, that’s fine.

Don’t go around aggressively making snap judgements or accusing people of taking a side. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable. This has been a shit year, let people enjoy something.

If you look at this situation and it makes you feel angry, and you don’t feel comfortable in taking part in a challenge because of it’s creator. I get that, I literally get that. It’s why I haven't done Mermay. And please don’t mention Pinktober, I’m aware of it, but given his insta video on the subject and the things he said, I quickly came to the conclusion that I can’t take this person seriously. I’m sure this might make me seem hypocritical, but how this differs, if only for me, is the sheer amount Inktober means to me. It’s more than a simple challenge. Inktober's the one thing I’ve been most excited about all year. As it was ruined for me in 2019, when I lost my home and I didn't get to complete every prompt. (Long story, I’m okay now). As we all know, 2020, has been an AWFUL year. We’ve got to take whatever joy we can. As I’ve looked longer at the official prompts, I found ideas I’m really excited for. 

Once I started to really dedicate myself to it, it became a massive event. I hype myself up as I prepare for the busy month. Buy in supplies, clean the house and workspace, cook and freeze meals in bulk to save time, printing off a sheet that allows me to jot down ideas as I plan ahead.  Then once it’s done, after so much work, it makes the reward all the sweeter: Ordering a takeaway, celebrating a great halloween night and still rocking those vibes throughout November. Feeling proud of myself for doing it and seeing myself improve my technique, discipline and earning a few lie-ins to make up for the sleep I lost working. I’m like a kid waiting for Christmas. That said, don’t think that there’s something wrong with you when you understandably can’t dedicate that amount time for a simple art challenge. If anything that’s plenty of reason to why you’re smarter than me. You have a life and don’t push yourself too much.

Now, I need to crack on with the preparations. If you want to boycott Jake Parker, just not buying any of his products should be enough. Doing the inktober challenge doesn't bring attention to him, as I doubt most people even know him as the creator, nor does it even line his pockets. I just hate how cancel culture can do such serious damage like this and then try and put pressure on others to act accordingly without even doing any research themselves. 

As long as you’re not harassing anybody. Just do what YOU want to do. That’s fine. 

[famedroleplayarchive]

YOO GYURI, better known as HUI, is the MAKNAE AND MAIN VOCAL of SILHOUETTE under GOLD STAR MEDIA. She was born on JANUARY 1, 1994. She looks a little like PARK SOOYOUNG (JOY) OF RED VELVET.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

faceclaim: park sooyoung (joy), member of red velvet

legal name: yoo gyuri

stage name: hui

pronouns: she/her

birth date: 1 january 1994

hometown: seoul, south korea

position: maknae, main vocal of silhouette

claims:

2012 supporting role as seol hanna in to the beautiful you (drama)

2015 lead role as ma ilyoung in coin locker girl (film)

2017 lead role as choi aera in fight for my way (drama)

ost for fight for my way (drama) - ryu jihyun’s night is gone again

ost for because this is my first life (drama) - ryu jihyun’s tomorrow

ost for wednesday 3:30 pm (drama) - an yeseul’s i just want to

2019 lead role as go haeri in vagabond (drama)

ost for vagabond (drama) - baek a yeon’s hello my lover

2020 ost for 18 again (drama) - sohyang’s hello

ost for true beauty (drama) - yuju’s i’m in the mood for dancing

BIOGRAPHY

triggers: -

her career is an accident, every single bit of it.

rewind.

press > play.

yoo gyuri is born in seoul. her home is modest and warm, it’s quiet and soft. her mother sings and it sounds like butterflies and a summer breeze. her father sings and it sounds like going to yangjae stream to catch fireflies, butterflies, and grasshoppers. she grows up with a song in her heart, she lives without fear. she’s round cheeks and strangely mysterious eyes, an intent and curious stare that unsettles those she focuses in on. they laugh nervously, little tittering sounds as they tell her she’s such a precocious little thing. so insightful.

when she was born she was everything her parents wanted: beautiful since a young age, talented, and sickening sweet. the long awaited birth of their only daughter brought a happiness that shed a small speck of light in what otherwise would have been a consuming darkness. tireless effort and patience were the tools of her parent’s trade and they applied this to yoo gyuri as well.  born to two singers - artists, they preferred to be called - it was no surprise when the small girl began singing before she could speak. figuratively, of course. they are gentle, but firm, and poured their expectations into the young girl relentlessly. they did not mean to fill her to the point of bursting, but this is what happened, regardless.

what was a natural gift is quickly turned into a power when her parents trade the extra math lessons for vocal ones, the arts for dance. even as a child, the pressure is insurmountable. her voice continues to improve, her range growing, her appearance matching the soft and soulful nature of her music.

fastforward.

yoo gyuri is thirteen the first time a vocal trainer tells her parents, specifically, what makes her special. what makes her voice better. it’s not technique or precision. it’s not even her range, really. it’s the power that comes out of such a small girl. it’s the emotion. “she sings like she’s lived a thousand years,” her trainer told her parents one day. “like she’s lived a thousand heartbreaks.”

when yoo gyuri auditions for a small company, she’s a slight thing, in stature and in age. thirteen years old but her voice soars powerful and pure, a heart wrenching quality to it that covers for breathiness, for unsupported notes, for the roughened lack of polish that comes with years of singing in her bedroom without any proper training.

fastforward.

even if the company is small, a little run down, often time is asking for money from their own trainees because they aren’t able to rake it in themselves - still she sings. and in the blink of an eye, two years pass. with not a debut in sight, with the small company still five feet under ground in debt, her contract expires and her parents small speck of light in the darkness is shut out. there is no giving up, that much is clear. there will be more auditions, there will be other companies.

her big break comes in the form of a training contract with gold star media. a new company, but one that screams of promise, founded by one of the most famous women in south korea. her parents knuckles turn white when they hold onto her the day of her audition, begging her to make it. she vows to herself that this time it’ll work out, she’ll debut.

fastforward.

pressure tells her she shouldn’t bother with being an idol. she’s not skinny enough, her dancing is mediocre at best. they probably have better singers. prettier girls, more typical looks. she’s self defeating. her boss brings her along to lessons, she’s in the shadowing phase of her program, learning through experience. the woman seems to be particularly smug today, a secretive smile in the corner of her lips. she wonders why.

she finds out.

opening her mouth to sing in front of the girls is intimidating - they’re idol trainees, after all. but gyuri is confident only, perhaps, in her voice.

fastforward.

it goes to her head. she takes to the idol life like a fish returned to water. she lives and breathes it. she likes their songs, the choreography is easier and easier as she’s pushed to practicing until she’s worn to the bone. a strict diet takes care of the baby fat.

and then -

pause.

they put her in a drama. a stupid, silly, role that means nothing. she’s good enough though, and people like her face. that’s most of what matters these days. she gets another offer, and now she’s got a taste for it. she’s alright with it, at least. she wants to sing, sure. she wants the stage, true. but she’s no dancer, and she’s got a shelf life. she knows how it goes for women in this industry.

of course, there is the typical criticism that always flocks in when an idol attempts to color themself as an actress. yoo gyuri might think herself special enough to escape the same treatment, but she isn’t. it is second nature to hear, read, comb through thousands of comments that speak on her voice, her looks, and now her acting. idols should know their place. she should know her place. she’s a good singer but what business does she have in trying to act? she bites her tongue, holds back wanting to scream.

perhaps it’s selfish, to want to be praised in both fields and yet she continues. there are year, or years, gaps in between, of course. she might think herself an actress but she will always be an idol first. silhouette is top priority and if she ever forgets it, the troll comments will remind her. as the years pass, she continues to do both jobs with high regards to each one.

fastforward.

she wants more. she wants roles that speak to her, she wants something serious. she wants a solo, more, she wants to make music. and she’s made a name for herself in acting, so they say maybe. maybe we’ll bring it out later. focus on what’s selling, for right now. and she does. she doesn’t know how long she’ll be spread thin, like this. she doesn’t know even if her opinion will matter in the end, or if it will, as it so often does, come down to what the public sees and knows of her, what the company presents to them.

like she’s learned from a young age, she tightens her grasp and holds on.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

this is an alarmist post

This post might sound alarmist because I don’t know the respectable, non-alarmist way to put this. He’s going full final-days-in-the-Fuhrerbunker. I want to be alarmist. We need to be alarmed.

On one level, I’m pretty sure you know this. You can probably see a vague reference to “what happened in Portland” and know exactly what the writer means. Unidentified little green men in military-style fatigues deployed against peaceful protesters. Protesters kidnapped off the streets in “proactive arrests.” ordered by someone illegally acting as the head of DHS. Journalists attacked. Middle-aged women beaten and tear-gassed. The mayor of Portland tear-gassed. It was, of course, worse than it looked, and only the most telegenic of concurrent power grabs.

But it’s really hard to stay at the appropriate level of alarm for even three hours – and we need to stay there for the next three months. It’s exhausting no matter what, and nearly all of our current information environment makes it even more difficult than it needs to be.

Most of what the mainstream media has to say about the election isn’t reporting so much as it is fanfiction. Characters with familiar names and recognizable faces feature in an alternative universe where “normal” political forces (which were defunct ten years ago) apply. Sniping about “messaging,” pathologically boring lectures about “enthusiasm” – it would be annoying anti-Democratic concern-trolling in a world where a free and fair election could be taken for granted. In the real world of powerful and accelerating anti-democratic threats, it is both dangerous and bizarre, like dumping a fifth of vodka into a Super Soaker and trying to use it to put out a brush fire.

The mainstream conversation is so disorienting that it’s understandable why there are also a fair amount of influential progressive commentators who have burrowed themselves into the reverse narrative. It doesn’t matter what we do, Trump is just going to steal the election anyway; it doesn’t matter if he loses, he’s going to refuse to leave anyway. A subset of these fatalists swing all the way around to conventional Pundit Brain: Trump has already blown up all the rules of democratic politics because Democrats aren’t using the One Weird Trick that would make them good at democratic politics!*

Before jumping down the rabbit hole of whether these narratives are true, it’s important to emphasize that they are not constructive. We are in a crisis. In a crisis, you need to help people understand that something abnormal is happening AND that there is something they can do to make things better. Communicating to people that things are fine, as the mainstream horserace normal politics model does, isn’t helpful, because it helps people rationalize the false but comforting belief that everything is fine. Communicating to people that things are hopeless, as the doom-mongering counternarrative does, is even less helpful. If you’re acting normal about something abnormal, there’s at least the off-chance you’ll get lucky and unwittingly bluff your way through the short- and medium-term. But if you’re constantly getting the message that you’re screwed no matter what, it’s human nature to either a) go into denial and double down on an unproductive response, which is irrational but understandable or b) get cynical and give up, which is an entirely rational response to a situation that actually is hopeless.

Trump is already trying to steal the 2020 election. He has help from the henchmen he has put in charge of important federal agencies and from the white-shoe lifers in the Republican legal establishment. Anything you can imagine he might do, you should assume he has at least considered it. He will consider things that would never even occur to you.

He hasn’t succeeded yet. He can be stopped with overwhelming turnout. We know this because of the 2018 midterms. Autocrats who are successfully smothering a democracy do not allow the opposition party to win partial or full control in regional governments, take over half the federal legislature, and gain a foothold in the presidential line of succession. That’s not how autocracy works. If you come across a commentator who is under the impression that a burgeoning dictatorship just gives away that kind of power for the lulz, consider taking that person’s opinions on the subject with a grain of salt.

Thanks to the 2018 midterms, House Democrats have been able to foil some of Trump’s schemes and warn the public about others. Even with Individual 1’s desperate thrashing at the intelligence agencies, we’re getting a lot more specific information about Russian attacks on the election than we were this time in 2016 from the Obama administration.

One more important thing we learned in 2018: just because Trump would do something, doesn’t mean he will. Here’s the Once and Future Speaker a few weeks after reclaiming her title:

At least Trump “didn’t declare the election illegal,” Pelosi said. “We had a plan for that” — though really, she acknowledged, the only workable plan was “to win big. Had it been four or five seats, he would’ve tried to dismantle it.” In his news conference the day after the midterms, Trump spoke respectfully of Pelosi….

The Spectacularly Failed New York Times buried the lead as usual, but there are a few really important points packed in here. Democrats did, in fact, have a plan for that, which you’re going to need to remind yourself if you try to follow political commentary in the next few months. For whatever reason, a surprising number of supposedly anti-Trump writers are  eager to undermine Trump’s opposition with false claims that Democrats are bumbling naifs who in 2020 still haven’t realized that Trump might not respect the results of an election.** This demoralizing premise is, as you can tell from the Wayback Machine link, not true, but for some reason it remains a popular lie, so it’s worth debunking.

More importantly, we didn’t know about the plan until afterward because they didn’t need it. Trump has blinked before, so there’s no reason to assume he won’t blink again. We shouldn’t assume he will do the same thing in 2020 that he did in 2018, because it’s a different situation! Just that people who have assumed Donald Trump will act in a completely different way than he has in the past usually end up with egg on their faces.

My two cents – AND THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO YOU CAN SKIP IT – is that any kind of post-election autocratic power grab would probably need decisive action from Trump within days, maybe even hours, of polls closing. That, in turn, would require Trump to absorb the narcissistic injury of a loss immediately, which he has been psychologically incapable of doing for the first 74 years of his life. Remember, he didn’t have to come to terms with the curb-stomping he received in the midterms right away. At first he could tell himself that Republicans holding onto the Senate (by the skin of their teeth when they should by all rights have swamped it, but whatever) represented a “split decision” and even a moral victory for him, so he could afford to go into, like, con man autopilot mode and try to charm “Nancy.” Everyone else adjusted to the Democratic victory the next day, and the next night, people got into the streets warning him not to try any bullshit. It was only after bigger districts finished counting and mail-in ballots were counted that it sunk in for him how badly he had lost and what the consequences would be. Then he soothed himself by shutting down the government indefinitely, which he seemed to feel was a display of his power – until “Nancy” pantsed and dog-walked him so he had to slink off and pretend it never happened.

If an election which was more or less as legitimate as the 2016 election (questionable but not Belarus) were held today, I think the most likely result would be a scenario a lot like the midterms: East Coast states make it clear which way the wind is blowing to most people, but Trump goes to bed at 3 AM thinking he’s close enough to fight it out in court. Over the next couple of weeks the mail-in ballots get opened, Miami and Philadelphia finish counting, and the real numbers start penetrating even his toxic bubble. Eventually someone reminds him that his armed Secret Service detail can escort him off the premises no matter what he does, so he loses what little nerve he has and skips Biden’s inauguration to go golfing at Mar a Lago. Or maybe Sochi.

But again, that is not a guarantee or even a prediction. The FACT is that anything can happen in the next three months, and Trump and his goons are putting a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone does happen. I spelled out my opinion of what seems most likely at the moment because it can get really easy to dwell on the worst-case scenario, which leads to fatalism and inaction. The least-bad scenario is actually more plausible than it’s been for the last few years, if we motivate ourselves to get it done. We can’t waste all our time and energy thinking about what he’s going to do, because we need to think about what we’re going to do. Voting is the core issue as always, but it helps to be more concrete.

If your state has early in-person voting, and if you can do so safely, vote in-person as soon as you can. Every state’s vote by mail infrastructure was going to be strained this year before these dirtbags decided to sabotage the postal service. If you can cast your vote early, you can help make the lines a little shorter on Election Day while leaving vote by mail resources for people who need them.

If you are a person who needs vote by mail resources for whatever reason, use them! Request your ballot now. Fill it out and return it as soon as you get it. You might not have to mail it back – your county may have drop boxes, or maybe someone can bring it to the local elections office for you. If that’s a safe option for you, please take advantage of it. If it’s not a safe option, mail your ballot back as soon as possible. You’re not helping anyone from the ICU.

If you and the people you live with are relatively low risk, or if you’ve survived COVID and your health care provider thinks you have immunity for the next few months, consider volunteering as a poll worker. Usually a lot of poll workers are retirees, who are by definition in a high-risk group. If enough of them decide to sit this year out – and that’s the smart, responsible choice – then polling places end up closing, which helps Republican voter suppression by making the lines longer. The more volunteers your area has, the more polls they’ll have open, which makes it that much easier to let people vote quickly and at a safe distance from each other.

This last one isn’t directly about voting, but it’s still pretty important: get used to pushing back on bullshit. There already is another effort to drive down turnout by inundating voters with disinformation. Last time we weren’t ready; this time, we have no excuse.

*Avoiding sources because this stuff is toxic. If you think I’m making this up because you haven’t seen it anywhere, good.

**Look, nobody*** is more sympathetic to The Men and their psychological frailties than me, but seriously, guys, some of you need to log the hell off for a few days.

***For certain non-traditional values of “nobody.”

[serialreblogger]

You want to talk more about the bigotry in Harry Potter? Go ahead! I've actually heard stuff like that before, but have yet to do much research on it personally and it's been a while since I read it, so I'm interested.

WELL

Before we begin I should start with a disclaimer: this analysis will be dedicated to examining as many bigoted aspects of Harry Potter’s writing as I can think of, so--while I personally am more or less comfortable balancing critical evaluation with enjoyment of a piece, and strongly advocate developing your own abilities to do the same--I know not everyone is comfortable reading/enjoying a story once they realize its flaws, and again, while I think it’s very important to acknowledge the flaws in culturally impactful stories like Harry Potter, I also know for some people the series is really really important for personal reasons and whatnot. 

So! If you’re one of those people, and you have trouble balancing critical engagement with enjoyment, please feel free to skip this analysis (at least for the time being). Self-care is important, and it’s okay to find your own balance between educating yourself and protecting yourself.

On another note, this is gonna be limited strictly to morally squicky things to do with Rowling’s writing and the narrative itself. Bad stuff characters do won’t be talked about unless it’s affirmed by the narrative (held up as morally justified), and plot holes, unrealistic social structures, etc. will not be addressed (it is, after all, a kid’s series, especially in the first few books. Quidditch doesn’t have to make sense). This is strictly about how Rowling’s personal biases and bigotry impacted the story and writing of Harry Potter.

Sketch Thing #1: Quirrell! I don’t see a lot of people talking about Quirrell and racism, but I feel like it’s a definite thing? Quirinus Quirrell is a white man who wears a turban, gifted to him by an “African prince” (what country? where? I couldn’t find a plausible specific when I was researching it for a fic. If there’s a country which has current/recent royalty that might benevolently interact with someone, and also a current/recent culture where turbans of the appropriate style are common, I couldn’t find it). Of course, it wasn’t actually given to him by an African prince in canon, but it’s still an unfortunate explanation.

More importantly, ALL the latent Islamophobia/xenophobia in the significance of the turban. Like, look at it.

“Man wears turban, smells like weird spices, turns out to be concealing an evil second face under the turban” really sounds like something A Bit Not Good, you know? If you wanted to stoke the flames of fear about foreignness, it would be hard to do it better than to tell children about a strange man who’s hiding something horrible underneath a turban.

Also, Quirrell’s stutter being faked to make you think he was trustworthy is a very ableist trope, and an unfortunately common one. “Disability isn’t actually real, just a trick to make you accommodate and trust them” is not a great message, and it’s delivered way too often by mass media. (Check out season 1 of the Flash for another popular example.)

Sketch Thing #2: The goblins. Much more commonly talked about, in my experience, which is good! The more awareness we have about the messages we’re getting from our popular media, the better, in my view. 

For those who haven’t encountered this bit of analysis before: the goblins in Harry Potter reek of antisemitic stereotypes. Large ears, small eyes, crooked noses, green/gray skin, lust for money, control of the banks, and a resentful desire to overthrow the Good British Government? Very reminiscent of wwii propaganda posters, and in general the hateful rhetoric directed towards Jewish people by other European groups from time immemorial. 

I’m also extremely uncomfortable with how goblin culture is handled by Rowling in general. Like, the goblins were a people that were capable of using magic, but prohibited by the British government from owning wands. That was never addressed. They also had a different culture around ownership, which is why Griphook claimed that the sword of Gryffindor belonged rightfully to the goblins--a gift isn’t passed down to descendants upon death, but instead reverts to the maker. This cultural miscommunication is glossed over, despite the fact that it sounds like Griphook’s voicing a very real, legitimate grievance.

To be honest, apart from the antisemitism, the way Goblin culture is treated by the narrative in Harry Potter is very uncomfortably reminiscent to me of how First Nations were treated by English settlers in North America, before the genocide really got started. The Goblins even have a history of “rebellions,” which both raises the question of why another species is ruling them to begin with, and more significantly, is eerily reminiscent of the Red River Rebellion in Canada (which, for the record, wasn’t actually a rebellion--it was Metis people fighting against the Canadian government when it tried to claim the land that legally, rightfully belonged to the Metis. But that’s another story)

In sum: I Don’t Like the implications of how Rowling treats the goblins.

Sketch Thing #3: Muggles. Ok because we’re all “muggles” (presumably) and because I’m white, talking about this might rapidly degenerate into thinly-veiled “reverse racism” discourse, so please y’all correct me if I stray into that kind of colossal stupidity. However, I am not comfortable with the way non-magical humans are treated by Rowling’s narrative.

The whole premise of Harry Potter is that Evil Wizards Want To Hurt The Muggles, right? Except that it’s not. Voldemort’s goal is to subjugate the inferior humans, rule over non-magical people as the rightful overlords, but that’s hardly mentioned by the narrative. Instead, it focuses on the (also egregious and uncomfortably metaphorical) “blood purism” of wizarding culture, and how wizards would be persecuted for their heritage.

But muggles, actual muggles, are arguably the ones who stand to lose the most to Voldemort, and they’re never notified of their danger. We, the muggles reading it, don’t even really register that we’re the collateral damage in this narrative. Because throughout the series, muggles are set up as laughingstocks. Even the kindest, most muggle-friendly wizards are more obsessed with non-magical people as a curiosity than actually able to relate to them as people. 

I dunno, friends, I’m just uncomfortable with the level of dehumanization that’s assigned to non-magical humans. (Like, there’s not even a non-offensive term for them in canon. There’s “muggle,” which is humorously indulgent at best and actively insulting at worst, and there’s “squib,” which is literally the word for a firework that fails to spark.) It’s not like “muggles” are actually a real people group that can be oppressed, and like I said this kind of analysis sounds a bit like the whining of “reverse racism” advocates where the powerful majority complains about being insulted, but... it kind of also reeks of ableism. People that are not able to do a certain cool, useful thing (use magic) are inherently inferior, funny at best and disposable at worst. They suffer and die every day from things that can easily be cured with magic, but magic-users don’t bother to help them, and even when they’re actively attacked the tragedy of hundreds dying is barely mourned by the narrative. 

It gives me bad vibes. I don’t Love It. It sounds uncomfortably like Rowling’s saying “people that are unable to access this common skill are inherently inferior,” and that really does sound like ableism to me. 

Either way, there’s something icky about consigning an entire group of people to the role of “funny clumsy stupid,” regardless of any real-world connections there may or may not be to that people group. Don’t teach children that a single genetic characteristic can impact someone’s personhood, or make them inherently less worthy of being taken seriously. Just, like... don’t do that.

Sketch Thing #4: The house elves. Everyone knows about the house elves, I think. The implications of “they’re slaves but they like it” and the only person who sees it as an issue having her campaign turned into a joke by the narrative (“S.P.E.W.”? Really? It might as well stand for “Stupidly Pleading for Expendable Workers”) are pretty clear.

Sketch Thing #5: Azkaban. Are we gonna talk about how wizarding prison involves literal psychological torture, to the point where prisoners (who are at least sometimes there wrongly, hence the plot of book 3) almost universally go “insane”? This is sort of touched on by the narrative--“dementors are bad and we shouldn’t be using them” was a strongly delivered message, but it was less “because torturing people, even bad people, is not a great policy” and more “because dementors are by their natures monstrous and impossible to fully control.” 

“This humanoid species is monstrous and impossible to control” is, once again, a very concerning message to deliver, and it doesn’t actually address the real issue of “prison torture is bad, actually.” Please, let’s not normalize the idea that prison is inherently horrific. Of course, prison as it exists in North America and Britain is, indeed, inherently horrific and often involves torture (solitary confinement, anyone?), but like--that’s a bad thing, y’all, it’s deeply dysfunctional and fundamentally unjust. Don’t normalize it.

Sketch Thing #6: Werewolves. Because Rowling explicitly stated that lycanthropy in her series is a metaphor for “blood-borne diseases like HIV/AIDS”. The linked article says it better than I could:

Rowling lumps HIV and AIDS in with other blood-borne illnesses, which ignores their uniquely devastating history. And Lupin’s story is by no stretch a thorough or helpful examination of the illness. Nor is its translation as an allegory easily understood, beyond the serious stigma that Rowling mentioned.

That Lupin is a danger to others could not more clearly support an attitude of justifiable fear toward him, one that is an abject disservice to those actually struggling with a disease that does not make them feral with rage.

This definitely ties into homophobia, given how deeply the queer community has been affected by HIV/AIDS. Saying a character with a condition that makes him an active threat to those around him is “a metaphor for AIDS” is deeply, deeply distressing, both for its implications about queer people and their safety for the general population, and for the way it specifically perpetuates the false belief that having HIV/AIDS makes a person dangerous.

Sketch Thing #7: Blood Ties. This isn’t, like, inherently sketch, but (especially for those of us with complicated relationships to our birth families) it can rub a lot of people the wrong way. Rowling talks a big talk about the folly of “blood purism,” but she also upholds the idea that blood and blood relations are magically significant. 

Personally, I’m very uncomfortable with the fact that Harry was left with an abusive family for his entire childhood, and it was justified because they were his “blood relatives.” I’ve had this argument with ultra-conservative family friends who genuinely believe it’s a parent’s right to abuse their child, and while I don’t think that’s what Rowling is saying, I do feel uncomfortable with the degree of importance she places on blood family. I’m uncomfortable with the narrative’s confirmation that it is acceptable (even necessary) to compromise on boundaries and allow the continuation of abuse because “it’s better for a child to be raised by their Real Family” than it is to risk them to the care of an unrelated parent.

Genetic relations aren’t half as important as Rowling tells us. For people with a bad birth family, this can be a damaging message to internalize, so I’ll reiterate: it’s a pretty thought, the love in blood, but it’s ultimately false. The family you build is more real, more powerful and more valid than any family you were assigned to by an accident of genes.

I can think of one or two more things, but they’re all a lot more debatable than what I have here--as it is, you might not agree with everything I’ve said. That’s cool! I’m certainly not trying to start a fight. We all have the right to read and interpret things for ourselves, and to disagree with each other. And again, I’m not trying to ruin Harry Potter. It’s honestly, as a series, not worse in terms of latent bigotry than most other books of its time, and better than many. It’s just more popular, with a much bigger impact and many more people analyzing it. I do think it’s important to critically evaluate the media that shapes one’s culture, and to acknowledge its shortcomings (and the ways it can be genuinely harmful to people, especially when it’s as culturally powerful as Harry Potter). But that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t enjoy it for what it was meant to be: a fun, creative, engaging story, with amazing characters, complex plots, heroism and inspiration for more than one generation of people. 

Enjoy Harry Potter. It is, in my opinion, a good series, worth reading and re-reading for enjoyment, even for nourishment. It’s also flawed. These things can both be true.

[send-beer-money]

A Review of the Little Fires Everywhere Finale (that was supposed to be short but got out of hand):

I hated the way Bebe’s lawyer went anout attacking Linda with questions I felt were kinda irrelevant. I’m not saying Bebe’s claim to the baby isn’t valid, nor am I saying that Linda didn’t make some mistakes, but attacking her for choosing white for the race of the baby really has nothing to do with this and it’s partly for the same reason the Ryan’s chose a surrogate mother that looked similar to the wife. Couples that struggle to concieve want a child that looks like them and there is nothing wrong with that. And when presented with a child of different ethnicity, you have to admit Linda and her husband took her in with no experience on to handle or treat Mirabelle/May Ling’s heritage and were trying their best considering the limited amount of exposure they’ve had to Chinese heritage and not the americanized interpretations and stereotypes built off of it.

I’m not sure where I stand on the entire case of who *deserves* Mirabelle/May Ling, but as far as who would be the most capable mother I don’t think they really worked hard at all to address Bebe’s capability to raise a child, instead they just targeted her low income, which is unfair because we don’t have all the facts about each mother to pit against each other. Yes Bebe made a sacrifice for her baby by giving her up, but was that a sacrifice if she did it with the expectation that after months of someone else taking care of her and paying for her, that she’d be given back? And she give her up so that Mirabelle/May Ling could live a better life, or so that she could live any life and Bebe could still have claim to her child? That doesn’t sound like a sacrifice to me, but you look at the scenes of her holding Mirabelle/May Ling crying, or when she’s trying to buy her food she says Mirabelle/May Ling hasn’t eaten in days, while she herself hasn’t eaten in a week. That seems like more of the exceptional sacrifices a mother might make. But between all of these questions and examples we’re never given a good read on whether Bebe is qualified or capable as a mother, instead they focus on her economic status and that’s also a huge shame.

At the end of the show, honestly, I just feel bad for everyone. I can’t help it. Even (although it’s only a sliver) for Elena, who was doomed with that hateable personality probably from the moment she escaped her equally privileged and whitetastic mother’s womb.

I feel bad for Moody who unfortunately turned out to be the biggest simp on straight-to-stream tv we’ve ever seen, he still lost Pearl which can be hard, and even simps are entitled to that pain.

I feel bad for Lexi, who just finally came to the realization that she’s a shitty person. She admitted it too, which im proud of, but damn is she goin through it.

I feel bad for Trip, who was probably the least hateable character. He really cared for Pearl and wanted to see her happy but he also wanted to see her with him.

I feel bad for Izzy.. for obvious reasons. Even though she’s privileged as shit and not super aware of it because she’s blinded by her struggles as a different kind of minority, I feel bad for her. She lost one of the only people that made her feel normal and had to be told those horrible things by Elena.

On that note, I also feel bad for April who is obviously struggling in balancing her caring for Izzy with the rest of the world’s homophobia. It takes a lot of love to outweigh something like that, so I can’t say I blame her for struggling with her own sexuality and not just kicking down that closet door (composed of her own internalized homophobia as well) like Izzy wanted her to.

I feel bad for Bill. That man’s really goin through it: cigarette, pacifier, and fuck all. He always sorta teetered between privileged ignorance and privileged wokeness and I could never tell which it was but this one’s for Bill Richardson.

I feel bad for Pearl, raised in lies with the assumption that she new why she and her mother lived the life they did, but when the truth came out she honestly was left with no clue as to why certain decisions were made and an entirely different explanation as to why they move around and have little money (an explanation with questionable morales and justification).

I feel bad for Mia, although this one also took some work for me to muster up the emotion for. She lost everyone she loved once, and that’s never easy so she passed the pain of one more loss to the Ryan’s so they could feel it for her and she could continue with Pearl. I think what she did was terribly wrong, but I also understand the pain she faced when having to own up to her actions some 16 years or so later. That’s tough.

I feel bad for Bebe as I do for the McCulloughs. I think they both loved that child for different reasons. I can’t be too upset that Bebe took the baby, although it’s less legal than the way the McCullough’s claimed Mirabelle/May Ling, it’s not any less unfair.

And last but not least, I feel bad for Mirabelle/May Ling who is probably traumatized or at the least emotionally troubled from this in some way shape or form. And before yall go saying “she’s too young to remember any of this”: um, no. What she went through probably spanned accross a multitude of developmental stages and had a significant impact on the development of whatever attachment style she ends up with (at this point my guess is insecure. very insecure). I just feel bad that she’s being raised in that same world as all of these people, doomed to have a life that, while different, is probably equally as emotionally troubling and miserable as the rest of the characters in this series.

But despite all that depressing shit, I must say: Little Fires Everywhere is one of the best series I’ve seen. Props to Reese Witherspoon (loml, and fantastic actress for playing someone that fucking dislikeable and for producing) as well as the rest of the cast. I would like to add a shout out to Tiffany Boone, who played young Mia.. whole shit. She must have studied the shit out of Kerry Washington’s mannerisms, phenomenal. I think the series itself covered a lot of charged and controversial topics that are somehow equally as relavent today as they were in the 90s. Not only that, but it doesn’t serve to blatantly “pick a side” or propose a solution or convince us that this matter is entirely black and white (not a pun, but if you liked that ur welcome). I haven’t read the book, but Celeste Ng does an amazing job of sparking discourse and creating dialogue within our own community and the real world, and that’s what media should do.