#in case it turns out this is misinformation

[rays-of-fire-and-ice]

Don't quote me on this but japanese speakers on Twitter are freaking out over a question that Kubo answered on Bleach's official fan club (Klub outside). Hitsugaya is actually older than Hinamori. I don't speak Japanese so not too sure about it.

I'll preface this post by saying, like anon, do not quote me on any of this. I saw something big seemed to be happening in the Twitter fandom and just used Google translate to find out.

With that said, I saw the Japanese fandom freaking out about it yesterday. I didn't bring it up here because I also don't read or speak Japanese, so Google translate gave me some....interesting translations. However, the general gist is that it seems someone asked on Klub Outside a question regarding Hitsugaya's age and Kubo has said Hitsugaya is older than Hinamori. Needless to say, my reaction was basically this:

All this time it's been implied again and again that, while not specific about the number of years, Hitsugaya was the younger one of the two, and I'm not just talking about his height and appearance. Some have interpreted the way Hinamori treated him when they were younger is that of someone who's younger than her, and then of course there's the whole 'Shiro-chan' thing, so yeah, I was pretty bamboozled when I saw this.

If it turns out this is truly the case and canon, then seriously Kubo just drops these facts and let's the fandom freak out about them XD I don't know if he's just trolling, if he doesn't know just how much hitsuhina fans would freak out, or if he knows exactly what he's doing and expected this.

As for me, if this turns out to be true, it'll take a bit of rewiring because 1) I've shipped them for over 10 years and you tend to build up a pretty solid perception of the characters and ship over a time period like that (that being, in humans years, I headcanoned that Hitsugaya was 13-15 years and Hinamori was 16-17 years old),2) it's a pretty big fact to just causally give to the fans. Up until now (and for the foreseeable future until someone can translate the answer).

Honestly though, unless he's significantly older than her (I'm talking, like, if he's hundreds of years older, like he should actually be an adult by this point but for whatever reason he's stuck in the body of a teenager), it doesn't affect my perception of Hitsugaya and Hinamori all that much. While there were certainly fics I wrote where I had their ages in mind (ie Hitsugaya being the younger and Hinamori the older one), for the most part it has been a big factor for me while I was writing fanfic for them. It'd just mean I'd have to go with a timeline, based on my theories and headcanons about how each of them came to be in Soul Society, that looks more like this:

Hitsugaya was born in the Soul Society. Granny, whether related to him or not, took him in and raised him.

Some years or so later, Momo arrives in the Rukongai, having died in the World of the Living as a child.

Toshiro, still a young child because of how slow Soul's age in the Soul Society, meets her not long after she arrives in the Junrinan. This would techincally make him older than her even though, in human years, she was older than him when she died and came to the Soul Society.

However, until I see the answer get translated by a credible source (ie. someone who has translated answers before and hasn't receive many corrections on their translations), I'm still going to see Hitsugaya as the younger one between him and Hinamori. Again, it doesn't really affect how I see them or their relationship all that much if it turns out it was the other way around.

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

[probablyasocialecologist]

The latest questions are centered around Anat Schwartz, an Israeli who co-authored several of the paper’s most widely circulated reports, including the now well-known and scrutinized December 28 article headlined: “‘Screams Without Words’’ How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” Independent researchers scrutinized the online record, and raised serious questions about Schwartz. First, she has apparently never been a reporter but is actually a filmmaker, who the Times suddenly hired in October. You would expect the paper to look for someone with actual journalistic experience, especially for a story as sensitive as this one, written during the fog of war. Surely the paper had enough of its own correspondents on staff who could have been assigned to it. Next, the researchers found that Schwartz had not hidden her strong feelings online. There are screenshots of her “liking” certain posts that repeated the “40 beheaded baby” hoax, and that endorsed another hysterical post that urged the Israeli army to “turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse,” and called Palestinians “human animals.” (Just this morning, more evidence emerged online; Schwartz apparently also served in Israeli Military Intelligence.) Finally, one of her co-authors on two of the reports was Adam Sella, who is her nephew.  Let’s pause here. What would happen if the Times suddenly hired a Palestinian filmmaker with no journalistic background, who had recently publicly “liked” posts that called for “pushing Israeli Jews into the sea,” to co-write several of its most sensitive and contested reports? 

[...]

There’s another related example of how the Times has botched the sexual violence story. One of the first Israeli organizations that arrived on the scene of the Hamas attack was Zaka, a volunteer group that recovers dead bodies. On January 15, Times reporter Sheena Frankel wrote a positive profile of the group; she included 3 or 4 sentences of criticism, only to quickly dismiss them. This site had already raised serious doubts about Zaka weeks earlier, pointing out that “the organization’s volunteers have systematically given false testimonies, and continue repeating them to journalists on behalf of the Israel government.” Then, on January 31, the Israeli daily Haaretz published a long investigation, that highlighted “cases of negligence, misinformation and a fundraising campaign that used the dead as props.” Haaretz cited one Zaka report that said a volunteer had seen a murdered pregnant woman, with the baby still attached by the umbilical cord — before concluding that the incident “simply didn’t happen.” At this stage, there are serious doubts about many aspects of Israel’s overall account about October 7. Only a genuinely independent and impartial investigation might some day get closer to the truth. But meanwhile, at the very least the New York Times must publicly recognize its errors, and assign new, unbiased reporters to try to clean up its mess. 

Continue reading

[vanessagillings]

I’m posting the ever-so-rare photo of myself alongside one of my characters based on my childhood because today is World Autism Acceptance Day, and I wanted to show my little corner of the internet who this particular autistic person is:  

I was officially diagnosed in February, at age 38 (I’m now 39). A lot of people thought I couldn’t be autistic.  Some people who know me in real life still don’t.  And until around 10 years ago, I didn’t think I could be either, because I was nothing like the stereotype media portrays. I was told that autistics lacked empathy (untrue), and never played make-believe (also often untrue) and only enjoyed STEM.  I was — and am — an empathetic artist -- and make believe?  I can spend days sketching finely bedecked bears brewing tea or carefully choosing the right words to weave tapestries of fiction — though perhaps my hyper focus was a bit of a red flag.  Even so, how could autism describe me?  I was a good student.  I got straight A's. I didn’t act out in class.  I can make eye contact…if I must.  And lots of girls hate having their hair brushed with an unholy passion, right?  Clearly I swim in sarcasm like a fish, so autism couldn't be why I was so anxious all the time, could it?

If someone had told me when I was younger what autism ACTUALLY is — instead of the nonsense I’d seen on screens — I would have seen myself in it.  I didn’t hear that autistics have sensory issues until I was in my mid-twenties, which is when I first began to really research autism symptoms, and I had almost all of them:  sensitivity to light, smells, fabrics, temperatures, textures, and certain touches, all of which make me feel anxious, I fidget (stim), I never know what the hell to do with my hands or where to look, I talk too little or too much, I have special interests, I have entire animated movies memorized shot-by-shot and can remember the first time and place I saw every movie I've ever seen but I often forget what I'm trying to say mid-sentence, I echo movies and tv shows (my husband and I have a whole repertoire of shared echolalias, making up about 20% of our conversations), I was in speech therapy as a kid, I have issues with dysnomia and verbal fluency, I toe-walk, I can't multitask to save my life, I like things just-so, I’m deeply introverted but not shy, I need to recover from all social interaction — even social interaction I enjoy — and I find stupid, every day things like grocery shopping, driving and making appointments overwhelming and intensely stressful, sometimes to the point where I struggle to speak.  It turns out, I am definitely autistic. My results weren't borderline. Not even close. And while these aren’t all of my challenges, and not everyone with these symptoms is autistic, it’s definitely something to look into if you present with all of these things at once. 

So why did it take me so long to get diagnosed? The same bias that exists in media threads through the medical community as well, and because I'm a woman who can discuss the weather while smiling on cue, few people thought I was worth looking into. Even after I was fairly certain I was autistic, receiving an official diagnosis in the US is unnecessarily difficult and expensive, and in my case, completely uncovered by my insurance.  It cost me over $4000, and I could only afford it because my husband makes more money than I do as a freelance illustrator — a job I fell into largely because it didn’t require in-person work; like many autists, I have been chronically underemployed and underpaid, in part due to physical illness in my twenties, which is a topic for another day.  But it shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t be so hard for adults to receive diagnoses and it shouldn’t be so hard for people to see themselves in this condition to begin with due to misinformation and stereotypes. Like many issues in America, these barriers are even higher for marginalized groups with multiple intersectionalities. 

It’s commonly said that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.  This is why it’s called a spectrum, not because there’s a linear progression of severity (someone who appears to have low support needs like myself might need more than it seems, and vice versa), but because every autistic person has their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and experiences, opinions and needs.  No two people on the spectrum present in the same way.  And that’s a good thing!  No way of being autistic is inherently any better than any other, and even if someone on the spectrum struggles with things I don’t — or can do things I can’t — doesn’t make them more or less deserving of respect and human dignity.

But speaking solely for myself, the more I learn about autism, the happier I am to be autistic.  I struggle to find words and exert fine motor control, but my deep passion and fixation has made me good at art and storytelling anyway.  I find more joy watching dogs and studying leaf shapes on my walks than most people do in an entire day.  More often than not, the barriers I’ve faced weren’t due to my autism directly, but due to society being overly rigid about what it considers a valid way of existing.  My hope in writing this today is that maybe one person will realize that autism isn’t what they thought — and that being different is not the same as being less than. My hope with my fiction is to give autistic children mirrors with which to see themselves, and everyone else windows through which to see us as we actually are.

If you’re interested in learning more about autism or think you might be autistic, too, I recommend the Autism Self Advocacy Network  autisticadvocacy.org and the following books:

What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic by Annie Kotowicz

We're Not Broken by Eric Garcia

Knowing Why edited by Elizabeth Bartmess

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD

Loud Hands edited by Julia Bascom

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

(trigger warning: the last two contain quite a lot of upsetting material involving institutionalized child abuse, but I think it’s important for people to know how often autistic children were — and are — abused simply for being neurodivergent).

Thanks for reading 💛

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Was it antifascist when the USSR only ever allowed less than 10% of the population to vote for the one candidate the dictatorship put forward for each role?

Why did you deactivate your last account? Were you upset that you looked so foolish? You don't look any less foolish creating multiple alternate accounts to send anon hate with. I don't even have anon asks turned off.

The Soviet Union had universal suffrage. Every voting-age adult was allowed to participate in the elections, besides felons and those who were incapable of voting due to mental disability. All ballots were secret (at least, after 1936. Oftentimes elections prior were done by show of hands, but this became problematic.)

If you are referring to the election of the Presidium or the appointment of the Premier by the elected representatives of the Supreme Soviet, I would consider that more democratic than the election of the President of the United States, since not only was the Presidium a council of multiple people in and of itself instead of one singular person at the head of the government, but the election of the Presidium was undertaken by representatives who were directly elected by the people, as opposed to the electors of the Electoral College in the United States who are appointed by party officials.

If you are referring to the election of the General Secretary of the Communist Party by Communist party members, then that position was not a governmental one. While the General Secretary did indeed have significant political influence due to their role as leader of the vanguard party, they were not a dictator and the position did not confer any state powers.

Not only were the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium composed of many different people who collectively decided upon state actions, many powers and duties were constitutionally delegated to regional councils and soviets. The federal government never held supreme power.

As for the idea that there was only "one candidate" for office during elections, the so-called "single-slate ticket" decried by the West, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about how communist politics works. Competitive tickets were not impossible, although party discipline prevented them from occurring at any high level. Rather, the single-slate ticket arose because prior to the printing of any ballots, there was a period of discussion to determine who would be the candidate in the first place. So it was not a case of people being told by the party "here is your candidate, now you must vote for them". The people and the party worked together to find candidates who had public support in the first place. In addition, not only could voters simply vote "no" and reject a candidate (and any candidate who did not receive a majority of "yes" votes would be rejected,) but all elected officials were subject to recall at any time if they were found to be deficient in their responsibilities by the electorate. Candidates were not forced on the Soviet people by faceless party bureaucrats.

If you want to know more, I recommend checking out "Soviet Democracy" by Pat Sloan (I should note that that particular work forms most of my knowledge on Soviet democracy, so take all of that with a grain of salt for anything past 1937 when the book was written) and pretty much anything written by Anne Louise Strong, although I would recommend "In North Korea", in particular Chapter 3 which goes into detail on pre-war DPRK elections and includes a very enlightening passage on how the North Korean voters at the time viewed single-slate tickets. Suffice it to say, they did not at all feel disenfranchised.

I can understand why you would be misinformed as to how the Soviet government worked. But to decry the Soviet Union as undemocratic, let alone fascistic, is absurd.

[qqueenofhades]

Look, I know things are rough out there, and critical thinking skills, especially on social media, are still, uh. Questionable (to say the least). But credit where credit is due, because I have also seen (to a degree I did not see in the last two major presidential elections, 2016 and 2020) the following things, a lot:

General hype posts for voting/democracy/Kamala Harris/Democrats (and even before Biden dropped out, a lot of hype posts for him too);

Blockbuster engagement with my recent pro-voting/pro-blue/pro-Kamala posts, to the point where I had to turn off notifications not because there was fuckery happening in my notes (as had OFTEN been the case before) but because I simply couldn't keep up;

Lots of high-note (10k+) posts regularly crossing my dash, written to cater to every kind of leftist/liberal/blue-leaning voter, encouraging and exhorting them to vote no matter what;

Information about Project 2025 and Republican extremism;

Forceful corrections of misinformation about Kamala's record;

Comparisons of Trump and Kamala on key issues;

Mince-no-words callouts of Trump and Republican fascism;

A tutorial!!! On how to identify an obvious psy-op anti-voting blog!!! And encouraging people to do the same/block/report!!

A constant stream of information about how to register to vote/check your voter registration/make sure you haven't been purged;

General slapdowns of tired old anti-voting narratives;

Whenever I put tags on political posts, the suggestions are always in the vein of "vote democrat, vote blue, vote kamala, please vote," etc, even though I have not used them all, indicating that those are the site-wide popular tags for similar posts;

And more!

And like. Guys. I realize there is always the task of emptying the ocean with a bucket when it comes to combating misinformation/disinformation, ESPECIALLY election misinformation/disinformation. I also tend to be grumpy, short-tempered, and cynical (and generally have zero tolerance) about its presence, just because I am old and tired and have seen this all before and know how it ended. But as I said: credit where credit is due. I have never seen all this happening on Tumblr before, and it gives me hope. Kudos.

[xclowniex]

Okay so, there has been misinformation spread, which I myself had done with one post which I've since revoked and turned off reblogs, so I want to get some facts straight about the Amsterdam pogrom.

The "fuck arabs" chant

Some, including myself, were assuming it was a football chant to support the Israeli soccer team. The video mainly shared was one with the start cut off and background music which to a lot of different Hebrew speakers, did sound like the chant, and to many others sounded nothing like it.

A video from a different perspective of the chant, as well as longer and without background music was shared, and they are saying "[something] and we'll win, we will fuck the arabs" - The Hebrew word used Nezayen has two meanings "fuck" and "defeat". So far there has been no additional context to say which meaning it is. Link for the new video

At best, the chant was in reference to winning the war against hamas, which still deranged to do that outside of Israel and honestly not super out of character for drunk football fans. Still not good, but also not the worst case.

At worst, it was racist chanting, which is even more fucking deranged.

This does not mean an attack was at all warranted.

Firstly, looking at the sheer number of people attacked, it was more than just those who chanted, meaning people who did not participate who were jewish or Israeli were harmed.

Secondly, there have been reported of jewish owned businesses being broken into.

Two things can be true at the same time. What the chanters did was fucked up, and the attacks were not warranted, and the attacks have gone much further than just those who chanted. A much more proportional reponsed would've been to chant back, not escalate and attacks jews and Israelis in general.

Jews in Amsterdam are being told to stay inside and not wear any visible symbols of Jewishness if they have to go out. This shows that it extends far past just retaliation against the chanters.

What we are not going to do is A) assume a group of people, which is a super small amount of jews worldwide and Israelis, represent the opinions of jews and Israelis world wide and B) Assume that every arab and muslim want to attack and harm all jews

You can and should, criticize both the Israeli and Jewish chanters and the Arab and Muslim attackers.

You should not veer into antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti arab racism.

[monstercangirlofficial]

People have to understand that, as soon as you are in a callout, you are marked, and are labelled with a discrediting attribute that you're burdened with. This reduces and delegitimazes your voice and your ability to be trusted and interacted with, leading to being ostracized and excluded. That is the point of the callout. After being marked and labelled, those who aren't stigmatized will avoid contact with the "stigma bearer." When marked, anytime the stigma bearer is recognized, they generate a response of aversion and disgust in those who have seen or are aware of the callout, which they rationalize and justify through the notion that those who receive callouts "deserved it"

This way, the stigma is seen by others as transferable by association and as a threat that's understood as a fair and legitimate reason to keep a safe distance, as to avoid becoming a stigma bearer. When those who aren't associated, and are sufficiently separated from the stigma bearer, support and defend the stigmatized, they become "infected" by association. But, those directly marked will always be affected the most, as they're exposed first and more widely. When labelled as a stigma bearer, the perception of you being unsafe is spread around as a warning, which is done under the guise of maintaining the safety and sanctity of the community

People don't even have to believe in the callout for the stigma to work. They don't even have to see the original post, if others relay the information through other means. Once the stigma is created, it stays almost permanently. When the callout has been around for long enough misinformation will also become easier to spread, as the original source is harder to track, and it becomes "common knowledge." It may even become in fuel for another callout, creating a history or track record, as "they were already called out before." This is why the callout is inherently effective. The callout is designed to be a weapon first, making sure it damages and stigmatizes the "brand" of a user. This way, their url, name, mutuals, posts and even profile picture bear the stigma

This policing of "bad actors" is weaponized to get rid of those that are undesirable within the community, and callouts are used against those that are marginalized, as they usually lack the social resources to retaliate, and because they're seen as "reasonably capable" of doing what they're accused of. Those that divert from the norm are also the most likely to be in risk of suffering real life consequences when separated from their communities and support nets, and callouts are intentionally made to socially murder them and their brand. This is why these warnings are shared "just in case," so people can feel morally righteous for defending the community, as it is easier than taking tangible actions to stop actual issues

Callout post are designed and intentionally spread to socially murder others, and the more likely the targets are believed to be guilty, the more effective the callout post is. People will only jump to defend targets of callouts when they're sure they're innocent (which you can only know if you personally know who's being targeted). But nobody deserves callout posts, and thinking that people who are guilty deserve them too, perpetuates this problem, and is part of the reason why callouts are so effective. Callouts don't stop abusers or abuse

Evidence will be fabricated, people will lie, spread rumors, and things will be blown out of proportions, but, even if the accusations are real, ask yourself what narrative a callout is fabricating. People making callouts know that most victims of them haven't actually harmed anyone, so they instead paint them as groups that "have the potential to harm others." You're left to fill in the blanks with whatever morally repugnant thing they could've done. Just the suggestion of possible fault and wrongdoing will make most people react with aversion and disgust, and this is enough to turn a target into a stigma bearer. People will avoid them, because the feeling of rejection is strong enough to rationalize stigma bearers as abusers

The weaponization of "the truth" is also an issue in itself. People making callouts will lie, and then it's on the stigma bearer to prove that's a lie, but only to their audience. It's also specially difficult for a stigma bearer, because they have to prove they didn't do something, and how do you prove you didn't do it when your voice is being put into question by the callout? Once the callout is out there, any statement in it will be taken at face value and spread, unless challenged or ignored. Focusing on "what parts are true" is also a weapon of the callout, as the debate of the validity of a callout also helps it to spread, as stigma bearers want to clear their names, but this leads to curiosity in onlookers, which spreads the stigma

When you're targeted by a callout post (and survive the social isolation), you don't learn a lesson, you don't grow, you're not allowed to change and be reintroduced to your community. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty, because people don't even have to believe a callout post in order to act on the implicit call to action and harassment. If others consider you a danger you will be isolated and bullied, sometimes to the point of suicide, and the people who decided to target you will consider this a victory. Callouts aren't interested in rehabilitation and growth, they're not interested in questioning the institutions and contexts that allow for the abuse of power and real harm to be done. Callouts are a means for quickly obtaining social capital for removing "bad actors" and keeping the community "clean"

[sir-kettle-of-countertop]

So, I saw a post circulating here about the “extinction of birds in 2023“, with this picture attached

My, what a bold claim! All these poor birdies, “went extinct” in just one year alone? Why would such an outrageous, depressing and catchy claim be spread around? Let’s fact check it.

All the species listed, Bachman’s wabler (Vermivora bachmanii, 1988 or 1980s), Kāmaʻo or large Kauaʻi thrush (Myadestes myadestinus, 1989 or 1987), Bridled white-eye (Zosterops conspicillatus, 1983 and 1983), Kauai ʻakialoa (Akialoa stejnegeri, 1969 or 1960s), Kauaʻi ʻōʻō (Moho braccatus, 1987 and 1987), Kauaʻi nukupuʻu (Hemignathus hanapepe, 1899 and 1899), Maui ʻakepa (Loxops ochraceus, 1988 and 1988), Kākāwahie or Molokaʻi creeper (Paroreomyza flammea, 1963 and 1963), Maui nukupuʻu (Hemignathus affinis, 1896* and 1996 ) and Poʻouli (Melamprosops phaeosoma, 2004 and 2004) are all, indeed, either extinct or possibly extinct, according to IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

What are the dates after the scientific names? Well, those all are *last sightings* per IUCN Red List and USFWS accordingly. So, these birds were not seen for DECADES and in one case FOR MORE THAN A GODDAMN CENTURY. And sure as hell there is NO information about them very suddenly being gone all last year.

What’s the deal then? Where did this claim even come from? Well, likely from this article "21 Species Delisted from the Endangered Species Act due to Extinction" from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It includes all the birds in the picture (with the last date of sight, listed above).

From the article: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is delisting 21 species from the Endangered Species Act due to extinction. Based on rigorous reviews of the best available science for each of these species, the Service determined these species are extinct and should be removed from the list of species protected under the ESA. Most of these species were listed under the ESA in the 1970s and 80s and were in very low numbers or likely already extinct at the time of listing.”

They didn’t ALL fucking suddenly drop dead all in the same year – if they did, as some other people have already pointed out, there would be an uproar EVERYWHERE. Ornithologists alone would not let it live down. They were officially delisted from endangered status by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that year, there was a proposition to do so back in 2021, too. Some were already declared extinct before by IUCN.

Despite not being seen for so long, they remained on the list of critically endangered for a long while, cause you cannot just immediately declare a species extinct. There’s no RTS unit amount number that goes to 0 once there’s nothing left; people keep checking for them over and over and over again. Sometimes it turns out that a species previously thought to be extinct is actually still out there. Attenborough's long-beaked echidna for example was last sighted SIXTY YEARS ago before being sighted again in 2023. It was thought to be extinct for a while, before 2007, when signs of its activity was spotted again. More often than not though, a species turns out to be actually very extinct, unfortunately – like in this case. I cannot possibly know if the creators of this picture, or people that spread it on social media ever had good intentions behind it for awareness, however even if they did, it turned out to be nothing but very blatant misinformation, with a fearmongering effect. The only thing this achieves is not awareness of habitat destruction or pernicious tourist influence or climate change or what have you – the only thing this achieves is despair and panic. People already so casually fall into complete doomerism, they’re very used to hear bad news. And guess what doomerists do? Typically nothing. It renders people helpless. It’s not gonna make people get up and be ready for action, it, at best, would just make people feel sad and/or angry, or at worst, feed into the current alarming rise of ecofascism. NOTHING good comes out of this. At the very goddamn least, no one needs to lie to promote a goal.

The aim of the USFWS article, on the other hand, IS to make people aware about those animals that are already gone from the face of the planet, no matter how long ago, and that now we have to protect those animals that are critically endangered and still out there – to not have to repeat those tragedies.

Be very critical of what you see on the internet, especially if it’s sited with no sources. Especially-especially if it causes a strong emotional reaction. Lies and misinfo could only hurt the cause, no matter how noble. And please, be aware of your local wildlife status. Check in with it accoding to trusted sources.

[*sic, possibly a typo and it was meant to be 1996, other confirmed date listed there is 1989] Addendum: I could not for sure find the uncredided (who woulda thunken that ppl that don't cite their sources would also not credit the artists) author(s) of the bird illustrations. If someone finds them, please, let me know! Edit: Huge thanks to moosefinch for finding the sources for the artwork! I'll add their contribution below:

"Image sources!

The Kauai ʻakialoa, Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, Maui ʻakepa and Kauaʻi nukupuʻu are from Birds of the World.

The "Maui nukupuʻu" and "Molokaʻi creeper" illustrations are also Birds of the World, but are actually a female Kauaʻi nukupuʻu (the other being the male) and Laysan honeycreeper/Laysan ʻapapane respectively.

The bridled white-eye is by Lauren Helton according to this source.

Bachman's warbler is by Lynn Hawkinson Smith/smithhouse2 according to this Etsy listing.

The Poʻouli is by Christina Czajkowski."

[dr-spectre]

I saw this really great thread on twitter by Grungygrim and it definitely highlights my thoughts and frustrations with the story of these games and the Splatoon fandom as a whole. (be forewarned, i get really tilted in this blog post fyi.)

I made a blog post about 2 weeks ago where i said that i was happy that the narrative online that "Callie is an idiot who got kidnapped and then brainwashed/mind controlled against her consent" is going away. (Here's the link: https://www.tumblr.com/dr-spectre/749710338672525312/im-so-happy-that-the-narrative-online-that?source=share)

Unfortunately I'm gonna have to retract a lot of the stuff i said. I'm still seeing, TILL THIS DAY THAT NARRATIVE ONLINE! IM STILL SEEING SO MUCH MISINFORMATION AND IT MAKES ME REALLYYYY ANGRYYYY!!! As a big fan of Callie, people completely outright ignoring her character arc THAT WAS SET UP SINCE SPLATOON 1 BY THE WAY!!! and not even bothering to look at outside sources for more information and lore genuinely pisses me the fuck off to no end.

No, hypnosis is NOT MIND CONTROL/BRAINWASHING! I DONT WANNA KEEP REPEATING IT! YOU CAN LOOK IT UP! if a person is genuinely uncomfortable and doesn't wish to take the suggestions to heart while hypnotized, THEY WONT DO SO! THEY STILL HAVE CONTROL! Yes, Marie did say "kidnapped" in some of her dialogue, but from her perspective, OF COURSE SHE'S GONNA THINK CALLIE GOT KIDNAPPED! She's known to worry about Callie all the time and ruminate about her, of course she's gonna think of the worst case scenario, doesn't mean she's right though. Was Octavio still in the wrong for hypnotizing Callie in the first place and allowing her to bring out her darker traits more easily? YEAH! NO SHIT! HE'S A BAD DUDE! Not a totally evil person but he has made some awful decisions out of desperation for his people. Why do you think he was so quick to help out the New Squidbeak Splatoon in the finale of Splatoon 3? His people got turned into fluffy monsters by a giant bear, he's all about helping his people.

Hell look at how Callie acts while under the Hypnoshades, she decorates Octo Canyon and her peppy and energetic self is still in tact even during the final boss, she's just more mean and violent. Callie was in an emotional and mentally unwell situation due to her overworking herself and being incredibly lonely as her relationship with Marie was damaged overtime. Callie accepted the suggestions of DJ Octavio and heard him out, AS SAID BY HER FROM THE RELATIONSHIP CHART! She wasn't forced into anything. She didn't suffer "sexual abuse" from Octavio by being forced into skippy clothing as some psychos say online, if she didn't want to wear that outfit she wouldn't cause hypnosis is NOT MIND CONTROL!! I hate having to repeat this over and over again, i hate how the developers basically rushed and ruined this interesting villain arc with stupid shades, only to try and hastily fix it later with an obscure post about A GOD DAMN RELATIONSHIP CHART THAT PEOPLE EITHER DONT KNOW ABOUT OR DONT CARE TO LOOK AT BECAUSE THEY SEE SPLATOON AS SOMETHING FOR KIDS AND TO NOT GIVE ANY CARE TOWARDS!!!!!!!!

I made a god damn giant blog explaining Callie in Splatoon 2 because i felt so frustrated about how my favorite character in the series was being treated and i tried to salvage the story that the writers tried to make. The way that people made her situation worse by saying she got kidnapped and forcibly ""mind controlled/brainwashed"" actually gave me chest pain, thinking about that kind of scenario for Callie actually hurts me... Heck i cant even listen to the Splatoon 2 stage music or final boss music because hearing her reversed vocals makes me feel uncomfortable due to the misinformation online. I hated all the misinformation and i wanted it to stop. HELL EVEN IN GIANT TIMELINE VIDEOS WHERE PEOPLE DO TONS OF RESEARCH THEY STILL GET IT WRONG!! UGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! i guess it'll still be the common and popular notion that Callie is an idiot that got kidnapped and then ""mind controlled"" by some shades... oh well... ugh...

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as really angry, i am. It's just, my brain is really hyperfixated on this squid and she means a lot to me. Seeing the way the fandom as well as the writers treat her makes me really mad. I hope i can find some peeps who feel the same way as i do. Misinformation is so frustrating man... i dont even wanna get into the Octarians because that's a whole other can of worms... anyways im done ranting. have a good night or good morning wherever you live y'all.

[alastors-antlers]

Being someone who sees a lot of talk about shipping Alastor (sexually, romantically) in fanworks, I just want to take some time to talk about both sides of the issue. It's long, I know - please, please bear with me until the end, and I hope you'll understand what I mean in a bit.

I hope this helps someone, but as an aroace person who understands the frustration and hurt, this is often how it feels to me:

Alastor, being one of the limited cases of aspec rep that I've seen and one of even fewer which I actually enjoyed, means a lot to me.

That being said, his canon rep establishes that he's aroace but not much about how this factors into his life or relationships at all -- and when there's a gap in canon, I turn to fanfiction, which tends to spotlight characters' queerness even when the source material doesn't or can't. Don't we all want to see ourselves in the media we engage with?

When I pull up AO3, there are already a good number of fics about him. Great! Some of them are definitely incredible; but as I read on, it starts to seem like a lot of fics I see acknowledge that he's asexual or aromantic in some way but don't really factor that into the story. It reads like you could have written the story without keeping his queer identity in mind, and it would've come out the same.

Even when representation that does resonate with me exists, it starts to be exhausting to pick through the slash tags to see which ones are written in an aspec-coded way, so I wonder if it would be easier to not read anything with slash at all. On the other hand, when you filter ships out completely, only a tiny fraction of the fanworks are left.

People often respond that aspec people can have relationships, and I think we tend to know that. They can have sex, some can experience sexual attraction in select situations, they can romance others beyond romantic attraction -- any combination of things. But some aroace people don't want either, and sometimes we're struggling to see ourselves in how Alastor is typically portrayed.

Out of all of the fics, sex-repulsed, totally aromantic Alastor isn't seen much. And when Alastor's limited canon seems to be pretty supportive of a reading where he is those things...

Sometimes, you start to feel lost. If fics were evenly distributed along the aroace spectrum of experiences, wouldn't you expect more fics of him being the "totally uninterested" brand of aroace? But there aren't. People seem to have a preference toward seeing him in relationships. Even if they mean well, it can make you think: what does that say about how we view asexuality/aromanticism as a whole?

Is there something less interesting about Alastor, when romance is taken out of the picture? Do others find him less appealing as a character if they can't see him dating, or in love, or having sex or wanting it? Why do we need romance, when romance is already everywhere else, when it doesn't even feel like he was originally really interested? It brings to mind a struggle to be societally accepted, even today.

Even when it's not technically wrong to write Alastor as you see him, being told that we should all be able to ship him however we want can feel like this:

It brings to mind people who try to swing in with misinformed good intentions, telling us "oh, you're aromantic? but you can still have romantic relationships, right? so you can still be normal." when all we want is to be okay outside of the normal.

Or trying to find a partner who can be with us, out of everyone who tells us "I know you don't enjoy sex, and that's okay, but I can't have a romantic relationship with you without it." and being so tired of hoping for someone who gets it.

Or talking with peers, and hearing them all commiserate and fawn over their experiences with love, then telling them about someone you like non-romantically and getting "aww, it sounds like somebody's got a crush!" but not being believed when you tell them it's not like that at all.

Alastor is not a big deal, not really, not in the grand scheme of things. But in an allonormative world, it can feel like a sudden splash of cold water when we were expecting a warm fire to sit around. Even within this ecosystem, we squint to see ourselves reflected.

Society isn't built for us. It can be exhausting to be reminded of that.

~~~

I hope to support people writing Alastor as any variation of aspec, or not even aspec at all. At the end of the day, I think that fanon is really whatever you want it to be, and everyone has their own reasons for writing what they find enjoyable. They should be allowed to do so, and I want to believe that people do what they do with good intentions.

They want to imagine scenarios with the templates of characters they love, and that's okay; even beyond sexuality/queer identities/etc., fan interpretations of characters can be incredibly, wildly different from who they really are in the story anyway, and that's what I try to remind myself. But still, I also can't help feeling disappointed about the aroace representation we could have seen.

(Is Alastor canonically sex-repulsed? Uhh, maybe. If I had to guess, that'd be my top guess, but this might be a hot take: I wouldn't really say there's enough to go off of considering that this view is supported by Angel propositioning him both times, and it's not like Alastor is a particularly big fan of Angel at those points anyway lol)

To my fellow aroaces struggling with Alastor's fandom rep: if you need a break from it all; if you need to block the tags that you hate; if you need to talk to someone about how you're feeling; that's okay. It makes sense that you'd want more representation in a way that helps you feel seen and validated and less alone. I can't speak for everyone, but I think I get it.

I don't have any solutions for how you're feeling, because sometimes I'm feeling the same way. I understand that you want others to get your position and you have the right to express your feelings, but even if you're correct, often being angry or frustrated won't help change others' minds, so let's try to save our energy and take care of ourselves.

Something that helps me to think about is that even now, asexuality is gaining more visibility. We're gaining support. Real change is happening in the world that's helping incredible amounts of aspec people feel freer to be themselves. And maybe one day, we won't be reaching to protect our scraps of representation.

Let's fight until that day together <3

[jjmcquade-misc]

Democrats are leading USA into dictatorship

Naval Ravikant says:

"the Democrat Party's lawfare against President Trump is "disgusting behavior" that could "end the Republic" and lead to a "one-party state better known as a dictatorship."

"If you look at the charges brought against Trump, and I actually read them quite carefully. These were really Trumped-up charges. They were really made up. You violate the statute of limitations. You try to drum things up into a felony when there was no evidence of such. It was a miscategorization of business expenses. It's this selective prosecution."

"If you want the case against Kamala Harris, it's the fact that she was the DA of San Francisco, and San Francisco is a mess. And, in fact, after she advocated for George Gascon, the guy who is destroying LA by basically not prosecuting criminals and going after business owners. This selective prosecution thing is a disaster."

"The moment you start breaking down this wall, you get into weaponizing justice. You know, Hillary Clinton blew up her email server and then wiped it with bleach bit. There are no consequences for that. Turns out the Hunter Biden laptop is real. Who knew? Even though we were told, it was all misinformation by the intel agencies. This is the scary stuff. This is the stuff that ends the Republic or turns it into a one-party state, better known as a dictatorship."

"The weaponization of the justice system and the engagement and willingness to engage in lawfare will lead to violence, disillusionment, a breakup, and something worse for the United States. When these guys start playing with going after their political enemies."

"When Alvin Bragg runs on the explicit campaign to take down Trump and then they go hunting through and looking for anything and drumming up any charge to go after him with the most favorable juries in the most favorable part of the country and then just control the evidence and control the narrative that is the beginning of the end.

And the people who are in Silicon Valley and the donors who are supporting this lawfare, they're dead to me. These people are destroying the ground on which they stand."

VOTE TRUMP 2024

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Crash and Burn 6

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Tony Stark

Summary: a powerful man comes crashing into your life. Literally.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

You land on your back. The constant wind tunnel has left you dizzy and buzzing. Your body feels hollow as you lay vibrating on the ground—floor? 

The helmet retracts from your head and the rest of the suit collapses. You’re left panting at the ceiling as Tony casually strolls around you. He chuckles as he stands above your head and bends to look down at you. 

“You good, sweetheart?” He taunts. 

You growl and sit up furiously. You’re nearly bowled over as the effort swims in your head but you resist the spin of the walls. You stand and grip your skull, blinking as you try to clear away the vertigo.  

The large window panel slowly slides itself back into place. On the other side, a view of the dimming city skyline twinkles back at you. You keep space between you and Tony as you take in the strange place. Leather, acrylic, dark wood. It’s a tapestry of luxury that puts your own existence to shame, even before he blew it shrapnel. 

“Why did you bring me here?” You hiss. 

“Long flight, huh? Bit of turbulence,” he shrugs off his jacket and struts across the room. “I could use a drink. How about you?” 

“I want to go home--” 

“Sweetheart, we went over this. Your mom lost her home and I replaced that. You weren’t part of the conversation.” He steps around the bar and folds his blazer over the end. He sidles along and grabs a full-bellied decanter of liquor from beneath. “I didn’t think it was very motherly of her but I guess you didn’t contribute much.” 

“I paid her rent. Half—it doesn’t matter. That’s not your business.” You storm across the room, larger on its own than the breadth of the trailer he destroyed. “It’s for me and my mother to sort out. Take me home.” 

“Again,” he grimaces, but it’s almost sarcastic, and he clinks down two empty tumblers. “What home?” 

You scoff then snarl, then step back and frown. You drop your head as you grip your hips. You need to call your mom—but you don’t have your phone. You have nothing. Everything you ever had was in the trailer and the only thing you saved was left behind. No wallet, no phone, nothing to get yourself out of here. 

“You can’t do this? Is this what you do? You just want something and take it? Demand it? I’m a person. You can’t just steal me--” 

“I didn’t steal you,” he pours the whiskey. “I made a fair deal.” He nudges a glass towards you and smirks. “Have a drink, it’ll help. I get it, backwoods girl in the city, it’s scary. You gotta adjust--” 

You take the glass and hurl the whiskey in his face. The liquid splashes down his shirt and tie and soaks his hair. You slam the tumbler down and sneer. “Why are you doing this to me?” 

He’s silent as he turns and grabs a fabric napkin. He unfolds it, calmly, and wipes his face. He dabs the fabric of his shirt and looks at you. His nose flares. 

“Post has been removed. Reported for misinformation, so, I don’t need you to go in and hit that magic button. Oh, but I do have my team cleaning up your social media. Just in case you have something nasty buried in that bodunk past.” He says. 

“What? I don’t-- why? Over a post? The truth? So why waste your energy? On me? What—if the post is down--” 

“Sweetheart, I can’t lie. The post led me to you but it didn’t keep me around. That was you. You’re... fun? Interesting?” He narrows his eyes as his cheek dimples, “hard to say but you do get my motor running so I went with the mood. Or how is it you younger folk say, the vibe.” 

It takes all your restraint not to roll your eyes. You cross your arms and glare back at him defiantly. 

“Bullshit. You’re Tony Stark. Everyone, even some smalltown rat like me, knows who you are. You got them lined down the block so I’d rather not join the queue--” You sniff. 

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. The playboy thing plays well among the male demographic, twenty to forty-five. The young ones want to make it big and get the pussy, the old ones are married and wished they’d done it all different. Their dicks stop working with all that stress and their wives are too busy to even try to wake it up so--” 

“Ew. You’re disgusting.” 

“Hey, I do well with your demographic too. I mean, the ladies don’t line up for nothing,” he snickers. “And what do you know, you got a VIP pass.” 

He raises his glass and drinks. The slurping sound further agitates you. You clamp your lips shut and turn to look around. You take it all in. You feel out of place. Not just knowing you’re as far from home as you’ve ever been, but the decor alone. You slept on a dining table that converted to a bed for the best of the decade. You’re not exactly from the high-life. 

You retreat back to the window and gaze out at the New York silhouette. Your stomach boils and your vision blurs. You hate that he can just do this. That you have no way to stop him.  

Worse than everything else, your mom did this. You don’t what he told her, if he prettied up his intent, but it doesn’t matter. Your mom had always been so eager to get rid of you. She dated a guy once and when they split, he tried to ask you out. She actually encouraged him. You should’ve seen this coming. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tony steps up next to you, the smell of alcohol roiling off of him. “It’ll make me tolerable. That and the sex.” He slaps your ass and you squeak, instinctively shoving him away. “I’m telling you, have some whiskey, it’ll loosen you up.” He offers a new glass of the dark liquor. “Nurse it, don’t down it all at once. I want you to think. Have I asked for permission so far? Am I going to start?” 

You stare at him. Your breath is trapped in your chest. His meaning is clear. You couldn’t stop him before and you won’t stop him now. You take the liquor and turn back to the window. It might at least dull your emotions. You don’t want to feel any of this. 

[liver-f4ilure]

The Charleston Church Shooting: Dylann Roof

*NOTE! This is a repost! And it will look familiar CAUSE IVE POSTED IT ON ANOTHER ACCOUNT!! Is it the best? No.*

—

Early life/ Prior convictions

Dylann was born April 3rd 1994 to mother Amelia and father Franklin with 2 sisters Amber and Morgan. During early childhood his parents would divorce and his father would later remarry. His stepmother accused his father of abuse. He would beg his step mother to let him live with her but she wasn’t able to. Dylann would be described to have obsessive compulsive tendencies with germs. In middle school he would stop caring about school and started smoking weed and drinking vodka. In nine years he would have attended seven schools. In 2010 he would drop out of Highschool and continue playing video games and smoking weed and drinking.

(The Roofs home)

In 2015 he was caught with an invalid prescription for suboxone at a mall to which he was banned from for a year. Later that year he was caught loitering in the mall to which they searched his car finding a forearm grip for a AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and six unloaded magazines capable of holding 40 rounds each but was let off it was legal in the state. Roofs Suboxone charge was mishandled and a system error took it as a misdemeanour instead of a felony. Which would have possibly prohibited him from purchasing the firearm.

(The flag of Rhodesia)

Later Dylann would look into the Trayvon Martin case and from an unknown article concluded Zimmerman was in the right. He then fell down a rabbit hole of black on white crime and misinformation. He then found 4chan and would find even more misinformation and hard right ideologies Dylann states he hasn’t been the same since that day. Which leads to his manifesto titled ‘The last Rhodesian’ Rhodesia being the African state founded in 1965 ran by primary Europeans and a white supremacy ideology before being abolished in 1979. The term now sticks with white supremac!sts like Dylann had became, as he also used the flag on his jacket. In preparation before the attack he looked up black churches and found the Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church and would scout the area and ask around about mass times.

The shooting

(The Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church)

June 15th 2015 somewhere around 8:00pm Dylann entered the church, once he did he was greeted by Rev.Pinckney and given a bible to study with. Roof was sat next to Pinckney as the study continued. As the study closed and the ending pray started Roof stood up and pulled out his Glock 41 .45 calibre handgun and began shooting. Killing Pinckney first. Then 26 year old Tywanza Sanders stood up to plead with Dylann before he said ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country and you have to go’ he then shot and k!lled Sharonda Singleton, Dr. Daniel L. Simmons, Ethel Lee Lance, Cynthia Hurd, Myra Tompson and Tywanza Sanders. Dylann would reload 5 times that day. Polly Shepherd was spared when he asked her if he shot her yet to which she replied no he then told her ‘good cause we need someone to survive because I’m gonna shoot myself and you’ll be the only survivor. He then turned the gun on himself realizing he was out of ammo. He then left the church to the surprise there wasn’t anyone outside. The next day the police confirmed the gunman was 21 year old Dylann Roof with witnesses reporting they saw him drive towards Shelby, a town close to Charleston. At 10:44am Roof was arrested at a traffic stop in Shelby where it was then confirmed he worked alone.

(The victims)

The Trial

Five days after the shooting the grand jury announced that Roof was being indicted for 33 federal charges.

12 counts hate crime against black people

12 counts obstructing the exercise of religion

9 counts murder using a firearm.

On June 6th Roof reportedly did not want to be trialed by jury and instead let the judge decide if he was guilty and if the death penalty was reasonable. August 23rd Roofs lawyers called the motion of death penalty unconstitutional and asked to reject the motion. On September 1st an on camera hearing was held in case of outbursts. December 7th 2016 the trial started. During a survivor statement Roofs mom collapsed as she had a heart attack. After 3 days of the trial FBI played a video on which he admitted to laughing and drinking while describing to friends how he’d shoot the church. To which his friend didn’t report to police and said he was drunk and took his keys and Glock that was on him. After 2 hours the jury found him guilty on all 33 charges. Roof wanting to plead guilty but told not to by lawyers.

(Roof at his video hearing)

January 10th 2017 Roof was sentenced to the death penalty,death by lethal injection.

[batboyblog]

How concerned do you think we should be about people who may not want to vote for a Harris-Shapiro ticket? Personally I think he’d be a great choice for VP, but I am worried about people who would smear him because of Gaza. I’ve read up on how his own views on it have changed and how he supports a two-state solution like pretty much any other Democrat and how he is against Netanyahu, but you just know how misinformation that appeals to people’s biases can stick.

well first off I don't think we should worry till we have a VP pick (statements that will be dated very soon) we don't know who Vice President Harris will pick, it might be Governor Shapiro, it might be Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, Tim Walz, or Andy Beshear, and I think they're all great, all good picks, all worthwhile.

On Josh Shapiro himself, I've seen an alarming amount of, disinformation, lies, misinformation, and twisting about him, indeed over the weekend one of the most aggressive attempts to ratfuck a person in such a short period of time I've ever seen. I can't say for sure where it came from but it was an impressive weekend for misinformation, with a trans panic about a cisgender boxer in the Olympics and anti-immigrant race riots in the UK targeting muslims about an attack carried out by a British born teen. Both cases as it turns out go back to Russian misinformation (Boxer, Race Riot) Just something to keep in mind as we watch fake and misleading stories about Democratic elected officials pop up.

Any ways on Shapiro himself, He has a very progressive record, his views on Israel are the same as everyone else on the short list, and indeed Kamala Harris views too. In some ways as a Jewish politician he's felt more comfortable criticizing Israel and Netanyahu than Goyish politicians, there's a good article about this:

if someone is willing to vote for Harris with any other VP, but not Shapiro, even though he has the same views on Israel as the rest, and indeed none of them have called Netanyahu "one of the worst leaders of all time", well they just have a problem with a Jewish VP.

I'm not overly worried about it TBH, antisemitism is a huge turn off to normal voters, but its up to everyone normal to dismiss it and keep trucking.

I don't know who Kamala Harris will pick, but if its Josh Shapiro, I'll be thinking about this news story from 1986 every time he comes up:

Before he was 13 years old Josh Shapiro formed a national organization to fight to free a friend he'd never met before in person from an evil empire, and they did.