#people with power want to take away the rights and safe spaces for marginalised people

[star-spangled-man]

not to get political on the main. but if you make a comment that about someone or a certain social group which you obviously have not walked in their shoes or experience it on a daily basis and then say “chill out. It’s just a joke!”

I hate you. You’re a dick and there is a special place for you in hell.

[tazwren]

My two cents on the devolution of fandom spaces...

As a former mod of a fandom space and a woman of colour, I do not feel safe.

Seeing what has been done to so many in this fandom, by a particular group of white American women, in the name of moral policing is both abhorrent and demoralising. As it also is to repeatedly see the same narrative being shoved at everyone as the gospel truth.

A narrative that very conveniently either becomes about fic or has nothing to do with fic, depending on how people want to swing things. A narrative that will accuse a person of Jewish heritage of anti-Semitism, a person of colour of racism, a practising Muslim of being an Islamaphobe. A narrative that will define for you and me and all of us comprising this myriad of multitudes in the world what generational or personal trauma includes and what induces the same.

Those of you who know me, know what I’ve been dealing with the past few days & why I haven’t spoken up before now. Before I logged out a couple days ago, I saw what looked like more of the usual nonsense by the same group of people I’ve kept my distance from once their true colours were revealed. What I didn’t expect is that they would think themselves so above the norms of human decency and accountability that they would go after not one but two women of colour this time around in their rabidity. And many others who spoke up, as it turns out.

It hurts to see what these women, that I know of, have had to endure and to see the passivity of the community, save for a few voices, in sitting back and letting the circus rampage through town. It hurt when I was at the receiving end of it and it hurts now.

Why? Because it shows me a microcosm of the world that I don’t really relate to, that makes no sense to me with the values I was brought up with, and which reduces basic human decency to a commodity to be trampled upon and for you to be seen as weak for having. Because people who willingly laud you for your art / writing / wit, meet you with effusive claims of love and affection and friendship, who have no qualms in taking your help when it suits them, will throw you under the bus and let the wolves ravage you when it doesn't.

Before I get into that, let me talk a little bit about what has transpired over the past few days to a week, and what has been systemically taking place over perhaps the past year in this fandom.

One thing is that everyone who makes a statement about anything suddenly has people in their mentions demanding they show what gives them the right to hold that particular opinion. A critical thing people forget about fandom is that it is a place where people hide their identity for a variety of reasons, all valid, and this approach to fiction and conversations where everyone has to reveal every part of their past and identity as a means of establishing their "credentials" in order to present their views comes in direct contradiction with how fandoms operate. It violates people's rights to privacy.

The other is that there has been an increase in the voices that purportedly stand up to “speak for” the marginalised, the abused, those discriminated against and those who belong to minorities who “need to be protected / kept safe”. An admirable sentiment, to be sure. If it weren’t for the fact that none of these groups of people needed saving, speaking for or the protection of this particular group of voices.

Voices who only want to define and use these people as "model victims" to hurt other white women and establish their supremacy over both them and other POC. Voices that will present their "truth" as they see fit and sans context or present you with screenshots of snippets of conversations held in supposedly secure spaces that they have no qualms in violating in the interest of the "greater good" and claim offense / silencing if the misdemeanour is pointed out or action is taken against them, Voices that will conveniently categorize you as a "token POC" or "white adjacent" when you do not support or align with their narrative. Voices that belong to a predominantly white American group of women, whose real agenda, as is evidenced by their modus operandi, has nothing to do with real altruism or a drive for justice or indeed to right wrongs.

No, their agenda is purely power.

To hold sway over groups of followers, to shepherd them as though they are sheep who cannot think for themselves, and to set themselves up as white saviours who call out those who step out of line, or are deemed to be problematic and toxic and unsafe. To be the owners of the only "safe spaces" in fandom and to drive other groups and spaces to be boycotted or worse.

Now, I've long wondered, who indeed are these women to decide that for anyone? In a world comprising multiple cultures, religions, groups, subgroups, genders and which contains multitudes, who are these women and what gives them the right to foist their puritanical standards on everyone, very conveniently disguised as concern for the moral well being of everyone and the consumption, of all things, of fiction?

Certainly, there are many things in this world that people regard with justifiably equal dislike / horror / sadness. At the same time, there is much that is not shared, that is particular to a culture and to a person’s background. There is a multitude of perspectives that make the whole. And the white women of the United States of America have not cornered the market on what those are, or indeed even own any curatorship or censorship of the same. They cannot, because each person’s culture and background and joy and trauma is their own, as are their ways of dealing with it all.

That being said, let’s talk about their pack behaviour and the devolution I’ve witnessed on social media as basic human decency is bartered for clout.

I’m all for standing up for someone who doesn’t have a voice or a platform, or maybe afraid of repercussions to voice dissent. I’m all for being there for our fellow human beings as they face struggles of often unconscionable and unfathomable proportions. I’m all for holding people accountable for their negative behaviours as they impact the larger community.

What I am unequivocally NOT for is treating such situations as an opportunity to preach, to virtue-signal, to shame and to put on blast the alleged wrong-doers. I say alleged because that’s what most accusations are on these platforms—allegations to do with things that disturb our sense of balance or make us wrinkle our noses or that we deem bad, and therefore make the accused deserving of the full force of the community’s misbehaviour and censure.

I ask you if you were found guilty of a crime in real life—you know, the one away from your phones and keyboards—would you not have an opportunity to retain a lawyer, to plead your case in a court of law, to acquit yourself? Or, if found guilty, would you not have the opportunity for correction and rehabilitation? Yes, you say? (If you say no, then that explains the spate of state-perpetuated injustices across the USA, but that is a different matter).

Why then are people treated so abhorrently in this court of public opinion? What gives you, me, any one of us the right to judge people so vilely and with a metaphorical gun to their heads? What gives anyone the right to say you better agree with everything I say, retract everything you said and grovel for it or we will eviscerate you in public, shame you, force you to change or delete the content that offends us and still ostracise you and in some cases even threaten you with bodily harm or death, or doxx you?

Why is there no grace in how people are approached or dealt with? Whatever happened to allowing people to learn from their mistakes, where applicable, or hearing them out and giving them a chance to explain their side of something we may not fully understand?

Why is there no accountability for such behaviour on the part of the accusers?

What makes the rest of you sit back and allow this to happen? What makes you think this is in any shape or form okay to watch? Today, it is a virtual stranger at the receiving end, one you can distance yourself from quite conveniently saying Oh, she just mods a group I am in, or I only read their fics a couple times or I only followed them for their art or jokes or whatever flavour of excuse you choose. Tomorrow, it will be one of your own - or it may very well be you. And you'd better hope there's someone left to speak up for you.

The irony is you will have allowed it to happen by letting the wolf in the fold. By letting these white women manipulate you, and the community you claim to be a part of, so unapologetically, so maliciously and so unashamedly that before you can do anything about it the cancer has taken hold.

If this was happening in the world outside of social media, they would have to follow due process, to present real evidence based on facts (not based on emotions, rumours or perceptions) and would have to allow the person they are accusing to present a counter-argument, to defend themselves or be defended. Failure to do so is a miscarriage of justice and, depending on whether this is a professional or legal proceeding, they would either seriously risk their jobs or have the case thrown out of court. If not face action themselves for attempting to derail the process of justice.

Why then are they permitted to range so freely through the landscape of fandom, snarling and biting at who they please, or who displeases them?

I have no shame in saying I was at the receiving end of their behaviour for defending a friend they put on blast and I will tell you right here and now, I am a woman of colour who feels unsafe and attacked by these so-called self-appointed white saviours of your social media experience, these so-called upholders of the common morality—whatever that means—who will fight for you the evils of problematic and toxic writers who dare to have an opinion not aligned with theirs and who do not bow to their clout. Not that they care, so long as they can ignore this fact since it doesn’t fit their narrative. So long as they can ignore what has just been done to so many people in the name of cleansing the fandom.

If any one of these women were truly interested in alleviating the troubles and pains of the discriminated, the marginalized, the trauma-affected, I invite them to please come roll their sleeves up and help in the multitudes of troubles that wrack this world, not just in the backyards of their minds. My country is amidst a struggle for the basics of human life in this horrific pandemic and, prior to that, for basic constitutional rights for religious minorities. Do not patronize me and lecture me on trauma and racism and discrimination. Do not marginalise me in your attempt to pontificate and set your pearl-clutching puritanical selves above the rest, or assuage your white guilt.

A largely American audience or fanbase in this fandom is purely a function of access and interest—other cultures have vast followings for things you couldn't begin to fathom—and it doesn't mean you are entitled in any shape or form to be spokespeople for the rest of the world. We have no interest in being colonized again by white oppressors.

If you disagree with what I have said, I congratulate you on being a part of their coterie and wish you much joy in being the sheep in their fold. Kindly unfollow or block me on the way off of this post.

[myrsparv]

I got this message, and I was originally going to ignore it, but I cannot reply to the person, nor can I see the content on their blog, so I assume they blocked me? Which I think is strange, since they asked me a question and now I cannot give them a direct answer. Well, anyway, I decided to get into it.

If you simply googled searched, you would get a very straightforward answer to what ”tradfem” is. As defined by urban dictionary, a tradfem is, 

”a portmanteau of "traditional feminism" in reference to belief that adherence traditional feminine gender roles are better or more correct, especially those held by conservative Christian Americans, especially WASPs. Often in opposition of more modern women's rights and feminist movements, non-traditional gender roles (I.E. women wearing pants, having jobs. Clair thinks a woman's place is in the home. She runs a tradfem blog and posts pictures of women in dresses with long hair and discusses child rearing and cooking.”

Enjoying the aesthetic of traditional femininity (such as long hair, dresses, aprons, pink etc) is not inherently harmful. It is however a red flag for many, especially LGBTQ+ folks, people of color, and non-christians, and I’m guessing indigenous folks as well. There are many reasons why people are put off by this aesthetic, and I’ll get into it, but it is a long discussion and I am not linguistically armed for it, as english isn’t my first language. But I will do my best to explain.

Traditional femininity romanticises traditionally feminine clothes, practices and relationships, and shares many visual ideas as well as patterns of how things were ”back in the day,” when women were stay-at-home-wives who cooked and took care of kids. This idea is very US-centric, very American Dream-esque, but it also borrows elements from Europe from a time where colonisation and slavery  and other more or less questionable and harmful things were at the forefront. There is also a LOT of overlap with fascist and alt-right nationalist ideas within the tradfem community, which should be enough for folks to feel uncomfortable and want to distance themselves from such a community and voice their distaste for it and wish to not be associated with them.

And let’s talk about this ”traditional feminism”. It is not inclusive or productive at all, and only benefits those who are higher up in power, primarily white, cishet women (and hardly them honestly,) in a western society. I suppose it is similar to earlier waves of feminism, which I might add only included the white cishet women, and excluded ex black people. What is it achieving, and for who? Who are included in this idea of feminism? Is it feminism at all, if the pursuit doesn’t have an end goal where equality/equity is achieved?

These blogs who are dedicated to traditional femininity and traditional feminism often say that there is nothing harmful about what they’re doing, that they’re simply enjoying an aesthetic! But here is the thing.

There is nothing wrong with liking to bake pies and share pictures of lambs, and dream of having a humble home with a partner to love and where the only worry you have is if you burnt your bread or not. You may even currently be a stay-at-home-wife, and there’s honestly nothing wrong with that. That is your choice, and if that makes you feel good and empowered, good for you.

However, this choice in your way of life is not an act of feminism.

On the contrary, it is anti-feminism to limit the freedom of others and infringe on their ability to make choices for themselves, such as careers, how to dress, how sexually active they want to be and if they want abortions or not, wether or not trans people should have access to transitioning, how people practice their religions, the list goes on. As soon as you say ”women belong at home” or ”abortions should be illegal”, you are taking away people’s rights to make choices for themselves, and oppressing others in your quest for feeling un-oppressed. It is not feminism to oppress, but to work against oppression, so once again you would be more-so aligning yourself with sexism and other more, aha, traditional ideas of what people’s place in society are - usually with the white man on top of the rest, the white woman second in command. That is not feminism.

Additionally, to say that feminism is only about men and women isn’t true - it goes hand in hand in combating racism, fascism, homo- and transphobia etc, and if ”your” feminism doesn’t include everyone then it simply isn’t feminism. So, when we look at this traditional femininity-aesthetic, we do not see inclusivity of these marginalised people. We only see the white christian and privileged woman, who may have the choice to decide for herself that she wants to be a traditional wife, a traditional mother, whatever it is - but other people are not able to make this choice for themselves, but are rather forced into a place where they are controlled and oppressed against their will, and it would certainly leave a bad taste in their mouth to see people choosing to do the same and say it is feminism, when it very clearly is not. You are in a privileged position and you need to realize that.

You cannot turn a blind eye to the harmful ideas that you are putting forward by engaging and spreading these types of images and posts that are being echoed within the tradfem community. You need to reflect on yourself and your values and where you got them from.

To say you know trans people in real life does not exempt you from holding transphobic ideas, and you should still practice some introspection on your own values and biases, and try to understand why on earth a trans person would feel uncomfortable and a distaste for ”traditional femininity” that ultimately doesn’t recognize trans people, or people of colour, or non-christian folks. You may love your trans nephew, and your black college, and your jewish neighbour - but that does not mean you don’t hold prejudice and carry harmful ideas that you may spread around and signal to these people around you that they ultimately cannot trust or rely on you because of your stance with traditional values, that has over the course of time excluded and harmed and ignored and killed these people.

To say that you are not infringing on me is also a lie. You are aggressive in your message to me, and showing a lack of understanding to where I am coming from with my stance, and you didn’t ask me to explain in a polite way. I do not know who you are, and I do not care much either, but your ideas could be harmful and damaging to me and the people I want to protect and help. I am not personally attacking you when I say ”tradfems stay away from my blog”, I am taking a stance and saying I do not align myself with their ideals, and stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ folks, people of color and non-christians. If you feel like that is a personal blow and attack upon you, then I really suggest you practice some self-reflection and ask yourself if you are making the people you care about feel safe around you - like your trans nephew that you mentioned.

There is a vast difference in relationship with the content we consume based on our identity. Me as a white queer person from southern Sweden will have one kind of a relationship to cottage core, whilst an indigenous person from the USA has a COMPLETELY different view on the aesthetic and what it means, because of our differences in culture, history, power in society, location and identity, and it is very important that I, as a white person, ask myself what ideas I am putting out there. I do not wish to cause harm, so I have to look at the content I consume with a critical eye and ask myself what ideas and values I put forward, and who they benefit, and who they oppress. It is important to listen to the voices of others and create a space where communication and inclusivity is welcomed - and ”tradfem” isn’t a welcoming community, as it only portrays the traditionally feminine and traditionally accepted woman - the white young woman who is blind to the world around her and can’t see past her own privilege. Hell, cottage core isn’t a welcoming community either, and I have been vocal in my criticism of it since I first started interacting with it two years ago.

Simply not being transphobic, not being racist, not being a fascist and not being sexist etc isn’t enough for people to feel safe, and isn’t enough to keep people with those harmful ideals away from you - you have to be actively AGAINST these things and talk about it and show it to people in order for it to matter. Silence is a violence too, now more than ever. 

Sorry that this post is so long, I hope I’m making any sense at all with this. So yeah, uh, tradfems can fuck off my blog.

[concerningwolves]

On Discussions of “We didn’t appropriate the word poly!!”

Comments about how “poly” can be used by anyone have been piling up in the notes of my post about writing healthy polyam relationships. While I’m usually the last person to jump on a discourse bandwagon willingly, I do want to address the matter of “Poly or Polyam”, effective immediately. 

I am not Polynesian myself, so there’s a point where I stop being able to talk about this. At that point, I’ll refer to the proper resources.

One comment goes as follows:

"Poly" wasn't appropriated, accidentally or otherwise. Poly is a Greek word meaning many, which was in use 2000 years ago. When Polynesia was named it was done so using the same Greek word, and Polynesia means many islands. They've only had that for around 200 years.

Yes, “Poly” is a Greek prefix meaning many. It’s also in polygamy, polydactyly, polythene... But we’re not here for a language lesson. We’re here to discuss how communities use language to create safe-spaces for themselves, and “Poly” is one such word.

“They’ve only had that for 200 years” doesn’t mean anything. The term “demisexual” was coined in 2008 and that’s a perfectly valid word which most people respect; if someone says they’re demi, those in the LGBT+ community and most allies are going to know that means demisexual/romantic. How long a word has been around for is completely irrelevant--rather, it’s whether a word was used as a form of liberation or reclaimed by a marginalised group that we should be paying attention to.

The next point made by someone else was:

Polyamorous people didn’t ‘accidentally appropriate’ the word. That’s the glorious thing about words. They have multiple meanings, especially in different contexts and environments.

This person was very respectful in their argument and so I can only guess that they’re out of the loop on the issue, which is hardly a crime. (I’m never in the loop for anything lmao, I’m pretty late to this too). But anyway, the point is that while language DOES have a contextual element to it, language is also a powerful tool that helps those who have been marginalised. As I mentioned about “demi”, the abbreviation is generally respected as belonging to the demi/grey/asexual community despite the fact that it means “half” and can also be found in the words demigod, demihuman, demimonde and demiworld.

So yes, context is important--and in this case, the context is who you’re referring to and what the situation is. If you’re chatting with a group of polyam people amongst yourselves then using the word “Poly” is chill, but on a busy website you may need to adjust your speech so that tags, searches and filters will help the right communities.

Then finally, the one that prompted this post in the first place:

I've never heard of Polynesians referring to themselves as "Poly," nor would I call them that. It sounds rather offensive.

Do you think that I, a White person with no personal reason to do so, just pulled this argument out of my arse for the sake of it? That I just formed an opinion based off of nothing that you could then proceed to argue with? That you or I or any other person who isn’t Polynesian has any right to speak for another community? No, no and no.

When I was first researching Polyamory to figure myself out, I came across an article written by a Polynesian woman about how she was really sad that searches for her people were full of polyamourus online communities instead. She had always used “poly” to refer to herself and others from her home--and that stuck with me, because I love language and couldn’t imagine having an empowering word taken away from me.

There’s a knee-jerk reaction to being called out that makes you want to defend yourself, and that’s fine. I’m only here to tell you what I’ve been told and explain why you should be open to listening as well.

This article by a polyamorous person takes a good look at both sides and explains the history of the debate.  Aida explains far more clearly than I could how the issue here isn’t about who gets to use the word, but about respecting individual uses.

There are Polynesians who use the identifier, and Polynesians who don’t. So our role as polyamorous people is to listen and act sensitively according to the information you gain. Don’t start defending yourself with stuff like the bullshit above, please. Just hear people out and respect their feelings.

It doesn’t mean that you can never use the shorthand of “poly” or that you’re a Terrible Bad Person for using it in the past (or even the present), but on a large space like Tumblr where lots of communitues are mingling together and language is the way in which we sift through all that stuff, it’s important to adjust based on the needs of others.

So gauge the situation, consider who might be impacted by what you say and listen before retaliating.

[massharp1971]

Bloody hell this like so much written under the "purity culture" heading is such ill-thought-through alt-right originated nonsense. It's dressed up to sound true in a kneejerk kind of way, you don't have to think too deeply about it. It comforts us from having to engage with challenging ideas that don't have easy answers.

Art is not separate from the real world, it's part of it. Art is used to shape the way people think (see CIA secretly funding the modern art movement). Our discourse around art has the power to marginalise and silence critical thinking. The term "purity culture" is just a clever silencing tactic that dismisses the possibility of engaging in a conversation about how all media shapes our lives on micro and macro levels.

Hitler said: "words build bridges into unexplored regions". There isn't a marginalised group alive who doesn't know that how we're treated in fiction will translate to how we're treated in the "real" world.

As for wanting the spaces we relax in to be less toxic than the spaces we get attacked in? Well of course we bloody do. People want to feel safer in their homes than on the street, that's human nature. Each community has to decide who gets to feel "at home" and who has to stay constantly "on guard". That's your choice, whether to help create little corners of the world that are comfortable for some folks to relax in... or not. I want the spaces I have control over to not replicate the systemic violences that marginalised folk experience in wider society, and I happen to think if you don't want that, you're unwittingly being a bit of an arsehole.

I know for example that ranting about "purity culture" is going to make entitled middle aged white people feel right at home and make more marginalised folks feel less at home in a space I'm in, so you won't see me doing that. While saying "I hate TERFs" and "Black Lives Matter" will make some folks feel very uncomfortable and not want to be in the same space with me, and I'm glad to see the back of them. Meanwhile it'll make others feel more comfy, and they're the folks I wanna centre precisely *because* the rest of society decentres them. Hell yes I want to act as a counterbalance to all that's wrong with the world and I hope to find spaces that'll do the same for me.

Everything in this "new" discourse on "purity culture" has been addressed countless times in the various iterations of this boring, eons-old silencing tactic (freeze speech is my right, safe spaces and trigger warnings are for losers, political correctness has run amok, yadi yada yawn) but here's my take on how you can be against censorship but still exercise critical thinking when discussing harm in fandom in relation to underage fic, which seems to be the focal point of this latest mindless "discourse".

And seriously, I am five minutes away from blocking everyone who uses the purity culture hashtag. Folks should know better than to borrow ideas from the far right and fool themselves that this time it's justified. There are other ways to have *intelligent* discourse about balancing freedom against harm. We anarchists have been doing this for years without ever sounding like we have a MAGA hat tucked under our bed.

What separates the people who spend their lives crusading against depictions of homosexuality in art and public life from those who spend theirs railing at independent creators for not perfectly protecting them from anything that might give them a negative emotion? For all that users posit that it’s an artist’s duty to provide trigger warnings as a matter of public safety and responsibility, allowing their audiences “avoid harm,” the very idea that art itself can cause harm either by victimizing someone engaging with it or by “normalizing” antisocial behavior pushes the conversation into reactionary territory. War and rape and interpersonal brutalization have been fixtures of human interaction since before history’s record began; the engines driving them are power, abuse, poverty, and other broad and tangible social forces. Depictions of morality in art offer only a pale reflection of these real-world horrors, and so function for many frustrated and powerless people as a safe arena in which to battle out ideas unrelated to art’s role in society.

Perhaps a movie reminds a viewer of abuse suffered in their childhood. Perhaps that viewer is then triggered, and must leave the theater in a state of severe agitation. Perhaps their day is ruined, their week thrown off, their compulsive behavior thrown into activation. The harm in this situation, the tangible damage to a human life, was done before the viewer ever bought a ticket. It was done between human beings, and no matter how terrible the effects of being brought back to this experience are, responsibility lies with the trauma’s original cause, not with art which coincidentally recalls it.

/standing ovation

This is why I get so angry. The things we warn for, the content that triggers huge groups of people, these are things we can push back against and fight. We can try to reduce abuse and poverty.

But for the people who get up in arms about Problematique Media, its easier to get mad at a piece of art than it is to work on the actual problems, and thus shifts the focus and blame off the problems and onto art that depicts it.

INCREDIBLE read.

[lordendsavior]

Harry Styles is a faithful disciple of silence. He rarely does interviews, and when he does he speaks with charm and cheek while avoiding any nuggets of actual information that could be described as revealing. Until he started doing press around his debut solo album this spring, giving him various bits of artwork and magazine covers to screengrab, his Instagram looked like an A-Level photography project—full of dramatically monochrome shots of infrastructure and food. His Twitter timeline is essentially a corkboard littered with messages expressing thanks to his fans, structured like love letters from a husband in the trenches—"See you soon. Love. H."

In our climate of oversharing, his withholding nature may conveniently double up as a watertight marketing tactic, creating a shroud of mystery that's inherently desirable (what's he wearing today? What's he eating for breakfast? What does he do when he's not making scheduled public appearances?). But for him, it's more than that – "When I go home, I feel like the same person I was at school," he told Rolling Stone earlier this year, "You can't expect to keep that if you show everything."

This is why you don't often see Harry Styles among the names that frequent the daily aggregated news cycle of and Person Says Thing > The Thing is Outrageous! > Actually, The Thing Is Very Nuanced > Ugh, Someone Has Said Something Else Now. He has, to paraphrase someone he once dated, removed himself from the narrative. But, at the same time, Styles has created a narrative that exists just between him and his fans. Simply put: he cares about them, very sincerely and very unabashedly. Which isn't unusual—Lady Gaga is a perfect example of the often very intimate way fandom culture works today—but Harry Styles is muse to such a vast number of teenage girls, a demographic whose interests and opinions are rarely taken seriously by music critics or society at large, that his respect for them takes on a different meaning. It's a relationship best summarized by the following quote from Styles in that Rolling Stone interview: "Who's to say that young girls who like pop music—short for popular, right?—have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That's not up to you to say." He goes on: "Teenage-girl fans—they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick."

This was also the defining characteristic of One Direction's relationship with their fandom. They knew exactly who elevated them from bronze winners of a generic talent contest to global superstardom, they knew exactly who kept them there, and in return they gave them what they wanted. In the wake of their split, journalist Anna Leszkiewicz described One Direction as "a towering monument to the power of teenage girls."

It would have been both a strange and fairly stupid move for Styles to abandon that relationship moving into his solo career, but if anything he seems to have doubled down. He still doesn't say a great deal to the press, save for the endless shouts of appreciation for the people who make his life possible—namely, his fans and faves (artists like Stevie Nicks, to whom Harry Styles owes much of its inspiration)—but over time he's fostered a channel of trust that means his shows have become as close to a safe space as is possible for young girls to get as far as experiencing live music is concerned.

Harry Styles is currently touring Europe. He passed through London last weekend, with fans arriving to camp outside Hammersmith's Eventim Apollo in west London as early as Tuesday. Approaching the venue on Sunday evening, the area outside is deserted. It looks like a Glastonbury camping zone on clean-up day. Duvets are draped over the empty barriers; the floor is littered with foil blankets and carrier bags full of empty sandwich boxes and crisp packets; Pride Flags and Black Lives Matter placards have been taped in place like calls to arms. Everyone is already inside, obviously, and has been for ages. There are about 50 girls camping across the road on a patch of grass underneath Hammersmith flyover so they can be first in line for tomorrow's show. To arrive on time to a Harry Styles show is akin to missing it.

As for inside the venue, you can hardly see the stage for the number of LGBTQ Pride and Black Lives Matter signs held aloft by the audience. In Manchester, people also held up the city's bee symbol. The "I love you"s and "Marry me"s stereotypically associated with teen girl fandom are still very much there in spirit, but their articulation has taken on an actively political tone. The rainbow, the striking black and white of the BLM logo, the Manchester bee—all are symbols of support shared widely on social media, where pop fanbases tend to be most active, exemplifying a generational shift in consciousness towards social awareness. Here, they're brandished less a show of resistance and more as a celebration. People feel comfortable expressing themselves this way because they know everyone in the room is already on their side.

Styles has spoken generally about equality in the press before ("Most of the stuff that hurts me about what's going on at the moment is not politics, it's fundamentals," he told Rolling Stone. "Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything"), but it's what he says at his shows, addressing people directly, that means the most to those who care the most. Throughout the night he encourages people to be "whoever you want to be in this room" and continually thanks them "from the bottom of my heart." Someone throws a Pride Flag on stage and he holds it with both hands above his head and runs back and forth across the stage. Someone else throws a French flag and he does the same. Someone else throws a bit of tinsel and he drapes it around his shoulders like a stole.

The room is full of groups of teenage girls hugging each other, hugging people they didn't know, turning to ask the people behind them if they could see alright. Anyone crammed towards the front has been there from the second the doors opened, denying themselves water or a sit-down so they could be as close to their idol as possible. The show had to be stopped twice to help two girls who fainted in the pit. Harry calmly asked people to take a step back, repeatedly checked if everyone was okay and spoke soothingly about looking after one another. He played "Kiwi" twice because it's what the fans wanted, though not without a bit of showmanship ("if you want us to play it again you're going to have to scream louder than that").

It's also worth noting that, although it was ostensibly The Harry Styles Show, five of the ten people onstage are women. As well as a female drummer and keyboardist playing in his own band, he's being supported by MUNA—a goth-pop trio from LA whose music communicates the emotional disarray of sexuality and relationships, as well as heavier topics like assault, through a specifically queer lens. On stage in Hammersmith this weekend, they repeatedly acknowledged the marginalised communities present within the crowd, providing reassurance that—in this room, at least—they are seen and heard. There are, sadly, so many awful reasons to feel unsafe at any show, but in light of the Manchester Arena bombing, pop shows now carry a particularly horrific association that lingers in the back of your mind and can make you inadvertently take note of the emergency exits. Rather than avoiding it, guitarist/vocalist Naomi McPherson addresses the elephant in the room and reminds people how brave they are for being here at all. Singer Katie Gavin introduces their single "I Know A Place"—essentially the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror as a song—by describing it as their imagining of an ideal world we should be working towards. "I know a place we can run / Where everyone gonna lay down their weapon," Gavin sings over a dancey four-to-the-floor beat, "Don't you be afraid of love and affection."

For all the talk of inclusivity and equal rights often thrown around within subcultural communities like punk, hardcore and indie—predominantly male-dominated spaces that can't seem to go a day without someone in a band being called out as abusive—it strikes me as significant that this is one of the few shows I've ever been to where I've not felt threatened by anyone in the room. And it's not because I am, at 5 feet 3 inches, one of the largest people in this one. It's because Harry Styles supports his fans' politics while they really live it, and as a result his shows have become a place for people to celebrate being whoever they are. The diversity of the room itself speaks to that. He's cheering just as much for his fans as they are for him.

Pop music is accessible and available in ways that more subcultural music isn't, but this dynamic doesn't just present itself anywhere. Justin Bieber shows, ecstatic as they may be, are not largely comprised of kids shouting down racism while overtly celebrating their queerness. Pop, like all music, can often be a form of escapism—a way to forget yourself, especially if being yourself can mean facing a multitude of hardships. The actual content of Harry Styles' music isn't anywhere near political but, because of the way his fans engage with him and each other, his shows inherently are.

Obviously, anything can happen anywhere and anytime. Harry Styles' name on the front of a building can't guarantee the absolute safety of everyone in it. But it does foster a world away from our current one; a world that feels less oppressive and more like MUNA's "I Know A Place." I can't imagine how valuable it is for teenagers to experience that—even if it's just for a night.

[talenlee]

With Sam and Max Hit The Road tucked away, I have to take a quick detour to describe a very different game, a game that is, nonetheless, very important to talking about the point-and-click adventure game, and more importantly, which provides useful context for its sequel episodes. But don’t worry, because the game we’re talking about here is Vlambeer’s Nuclear Throne, which is super great and I love it to bits because it’s super great, so this won’t take long.

Okay, Describe How It Plays

This is always the easy one, right? Nuclear Throne is a top-down game with a real sense of activity. You press the button, you move in that direction until you stop pressing that button. Your gun is a purely responsive thing too – you press the button, you pull the trigger, it shoots the gun. You want to shoot more, you press the button more. You want to shoot in a direction, you point the gun in that direction with your mouse or joystick. It’s a very responsive game, and after a bunch of turn-based games and playing older games that tried to do arcade sequences with engines that were not going to pull it off, Nuclear Throne plays like a dream.

It’s not a nice dream, though, because Nuclear throne is a truly merciless roguelike. Set in a post-post-post apocalyptic setting where the humans are gone and life that remains is mostly Extremely Weird and Extremely Extremely dangerous.

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This propogates to the gameplay, too! Because Nuclear Throne is hard as nails and it’s not shy about it. The game has a loading hint saying simply it isn’t fair, and it’s not lying. The game spawns big arenas of random monsters to fight and some levels can be a linear spaghetti-like thread of cover-bouncing back-and-forth shooting, with bank shots and clever positioning, where your weapon choices are all artful and brilliant and some times you get an open field and everything you pull has the same ammo type and hey you’re just screwed.

One of my personal measurements for the quality of a game with frustration-based mechanics is just how it handles a good, sharp alt-f4 quit, and how long it can take to slink back to the game after you’re done being mad at the same for being too hard. In this regard, one of my hallmark games is Hotline Miami, which gets out of your hair fast, but does take a few screens to get going before it comes back. Nuclear Throne is gone in an instant but it also loads in a flash too.

Uh But Have You Finished It?

That said, this difficulty does do its job of keeping the game fresh – sort of. I’ve played the opening sections of this game a few dozen times now and sometimes a run doesn’t even get past the second level. That’s fine, it’s how it’s meant to go. I haven’t finished it – I don’t know if I ever will finish it before I’m done with this singular experience, if there’s going to be a point where I’m done trying at the difficulty curve that feels a bit more like trying to wall-run like a teenager in a mall parking lot.

The issue of play skill has come up with reviewers recently, and while I’m firmly in the it doesn’t matter camp, for all I know, The Nuclear Throne completely bottles it at the last minute. It might have a total wet fart of a conclusion, the final denoument of the narrative may be awful and maybe after twenty-five hours of progress through the game it’ll stop being fun. I don’t know. I can’t tell you what that’s about.

I can tell you how I feel about it, how I feel about the experience. I can tell you how the game responds. I can tell you about the themes and ideas and concepts I see in the game and I can share that with you.

If you want a strategy guide, a or an absolute summary statement of all the content in the game as a final product, sorry. I can’t give you that. I can’t tell you what it’s like to finish The Nuclear Throne.

Sorry.

Now with that tawdry excursion into Gamers Are Breathlessly Concerned About, back to talking about things in this game that are actually interesting:

The Sympathy For Monsters

There isn’t a lot of sympathy in Nuclear Throne for the player’s plight of trying to get to the throne. Players are interruptions in this progression, strange deviations from the norm, people who aren’t already attuned to and okay with the world. They are, in this context, the world’s people.

The people of the world of Nuclear Throne are monsters. Not in their own context – they’re just people, and none of them have any reason to regard one another as weird at all. They’re not even monsters to us – not properly, they don’t inhabit that narrative space. But they are movie monsters. They look like and inhabit the space of apocalyptic movies – Triffids and sea monsters and death robots and horror monsters evolved from the ashes of our civilisation. They are the schlock monsters, the B-movies, the citizens of camp, the princesses and princes and princex of pulp, and the game is quietly and sincerely sympathetic to them.

They are presented as cool little monsters, as funny, as weird in their own ways. The image the story starts with is of a campfire, of all these characters taking a moment with one another. There’s a gentle calmness to it, a cool warmth. Now there’s no reason it should be this way: the character select screen could look like all sorts of other things, if they wanted it to. Instead, Vlambeer chose to frame this story with this moment of the monsters sitting around, enjoying a quiet evening before they set out on their big, troublesome journey.

For a reckless game about shooting and dodging and bullet helling and at least one monster that pukes rats on people, this is an important frame. It means there’s always a sign of some moment – rare as it is – of these characters having time to stop and thinking, time to be safe, time to be calm. It’s humanising, and it’s healing, and in the context of these rounded up monsters, oddball beasts in a land of violence, it reminds me of how many times these monsters were stand-ins in movies for the marginalised and the left behind.

The monsters of Nuclear Throne are most interesting to me because they have, as expressed in such a tiny amount of space, personality. They have identities and style – even when shown as squat, jubbly little sprites and icons on mutation icons. Yet even within those small spaces you learn who is calm and quiet, who is aggressive, who is bloodthirsty and rageful. This isn’t something I think Vlambeer set out to do. I don’t think they said ‘we want to make our monster representation really humanising and comforting.’ I think they designed these monsters to look in a way they liked, and what they know, what they care about showed through.

That’s the thing that Nuclear Throne has at its core: The things it’s doing, the things it’s about, are all things that the people involved clearly love and care about. I’m not doing to do some advanced textual reading about what they think of old schlock movies or post-apocalyptica beyond they clearly like those movies. Let that be the lesson of Nuclear Throne even if I never finish it, even if I never can finish it: What you love shows in what you do, and knowing that is powerful.

Verdict

You can get Nuclear Throne on Steam, GOG, and Humble.

Verdict

Get it if:

You want a rewarding frantic click-and-shooter

You like procedural map generation and fast decision making

Avoid it if:

You need to feel, the second you pick up a game, that you will finish it, even if just as a creative fiction for yourself

You’re not into losing a lot

[continuity category=8]

Game Pile: Nuclear Throne With Sam and Max Hit The Road tucked away, I have to take a quick detour to describe a very different game, a game that is, nonetheless, very important to talking about the point-and-click adventure game, and more importantly, which provides useful context for its sequel episodes.

[todaybharatnews]

via Today Bharat nbsp; In cases of sexual violence, power is a big factor at play. And unless we realise how this power plays out in everyday situations, we can keep harping ndash; ldquo;Oh but why didnrsquo;t she speak sooner.rdquo; Nandhini* was on the lookout for a job in 2009, when she made the acquaintance of a senior journalist in Hyderabad. The man was a big name in news television and told her that he would help her with leads. The news that Nandhini had outed a predator in the organisation where she was working had spread, and the then-21-year-old was desperately looking to get a new job as the environment in the newspaper she worked with was getting uncomfortable. The senior television journalist added her on Facebook, praised her courage for outing her predator, and on the pretext of setting up a meeting with his wife ndash; also a senior journalist ndash; he took her to his house and sexually assaulted her. ldquo;When we went up to his house though, I realised that the door was locked. I got uncomfortable and said I will come back later. He said his wife must have stepped out to pick up their daughter, and asked me to come in and sit down. This man then went into the kitchen to get some water. When he came out, he had unzipped himself and had his penis out. I was frozen, shocked and scared, and got up to leave. He held my hand pushed me down on the sofa and forced me to give him a blow job, even as I was crying,rdquo; Nandhini says, ldquo;He then threw a box of tissues on me, asked me to clean up and get out of the house.rdquo; ldquo;When the incident happened a decade ago, I was too shaken and shocked to process it. All I felt was shame,rdquo; Nandhini tells TNM, ldquo;Since I had just gone through the trauma of being harassed at my then workplace and being stigmatised for having raised my voice, I felt that if I spoke up about the assault I would be shamed again.rdquo; The journalist who assaulted her also made her believe that no one would trust her if she spoke up. ldquo;He told me no one would believe me because many in the media circles thought I was lsquo;offrsquo;. I guess I believed that and didn't want to put myself through another round of being stigmatised, so I did not reveal what happened to anyone,rdquo; she says. ldquo;I thought this was the best thing to do for self-preservation. Now I know it's this culture of silence that allows men to get away with impunity and predatory behaviour,rdquo; Nandhini says, days after she spoke up about the assault for the first time in a #MeToo post. In the last decade, the journalist ndash; and his wife ndash; have only grown more powerful in the industry, and while she has heard whispers of his misconduct with other women, he has not faced any repercussions for his behaviour so far, she says. Like Nandhini, many women who face sexual abuse, assault, and harassment donrsquo;t report it or speak up about it immediately after it happens for many reasons. In many cases, there is a power differential between the survivor and the perpetrator; survivors risk losing their livelihood if their perpetrator is a powerful man in the same industry, and for many women, redressal mechanisms are not immediately apparent. Reason 1: lsquo;Good girls stay quietrsquo;Singer Chinmayi, who has accused prominent Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu of misbehaving with her, says there is a conspiracy of silence that women are forced to follow. ldquo;When it first happened, I told my mother about it ndash; and in the course of several years after that, I have told some other people too about how he misbehaved with me; so in these discussions, others have told me that he has behaved inappropriately with them as well ndash; but wersquo;re in a culture where women are told to not speak out about these things,rdquo; Chinmayi tells TNM. ldquo;Maximum ndash; we share with our lsquo;girl gangsrsquo; about who is a pervert. That women must take care of themselves around certain men. Wersquo;re not in a society where we are encouraged to speak up about sexual harassment,rdquo; she adds. ldquo;We are conditioned from childhood to hush up when something bad happens,rdquo; Nandhini says, ldquo;An uncle touches you inappropriately and you tell your parents, and parents hush you up. They either don't believe you, or believe you and worry too much about you being tagged lsquo;violatedrsquo;. In schools too, there is very little conversation on consent, safe touch, unsafe touch ndash; and somehow, girls and women are brought up to carry the burden of shame that isn't theirs.rdquo; Reason 2: lsquo;No real mechanisms for redressalrsquo;Veteran Bollywood writer-producer Vinta Nanda, who recently accused actor Alok Nath of rape 19 years ago, tells TNM that when the crime happened, such behaviour was so normalised there was rarely a question of seeking redressal. ldquo;It was not considered lsquo;wrongrsquo; anyway, so what will you go and report?rdquo; she asks, ldquo;Now there is a provision for ICCs (Internal Complaints Committees for sexual harassment) ndash; back then there were no platforms for redressal. So, who would I go to?rdquo; Going to the court, Vinta says, is a process that not many women can afford ndash; both financially and in terms of time. ldquo;Itrsquo;s only in the last month that ICCs are being set up in the film industry. Before there were ICCs, where could we go? Going to court would take our life away. I did not feel empowered to speak up 20 years ago,rdquo; she says. Reason 3: lsquo;When the man is powerful, no one believes yoursquo;ldquo;More than anything else, the man who misbehaved with me was very powerful,rdquo; says Chinmayi, ldquo;so there was fear.rdquo; ldquo;In many cases, coming out means losing all the support you have, if the man yoursquo;re accusing is powerful,rdquo; Vinta explains. In Nandhinirsquo;s case, the man in question has already displayed how he will react when someone accuses him. ldquo;When another woman came out with her #MeToo story about him, his wife decided to intimidate her, and he decided to shame her in a statement,rdquo; Nandhini says, explaining why she has chosen to not reveal her identity. The day she made her #MeToo statement was the first time Nandhini spoke out about the assault to anyone ndash; the first instance she has acknowledged the assault. ldquo;Reliving my trauma is difficult enough,rdquo; she explains. Reason 4: Layers of oppressionNandhini says that among the many disgusting things the senior journalist said when he assaulted her, was, ldquo;Glad you were upper caste, no way I would let anyone else touch my penis.rdquo; The very fact that most of the voices that have been heard in this wave of the #MeToo movement in India points to how much more difficult it is for marginalised women, men, and non-binary folks to speak up. As former Miss India and actor Niharika Singh said in her #MeToo statement, shared by journalist Sandhya Menon, ldquo;Violence against women may be a common feature faced by all women in India, but there is no denying the fact that certain kinds of violence are customarily reserved solely for Dalit women. More so for those who assert themselves and reject caste and patriarchal domination. While crimes against upper caste women are taken seriously and elicit more empathy, violation of rights of Dalit women and the injustice meted out to us has an excruciating long history. Statistics show that crimes against Dalits have risen by 746% in the last one decade. A Dalit atrocity is committed every 15 minutes and six Dalit women are raped every day. Most cases are neither registered nor acted upon and the perpetrators go scot-free.rdquo; The way forwardldquo;When people ask why women donrsquo;t speak up, or why women donrsquo;t speak up sooner ndash; I think that question can only be asked after you make the society safe for women,rdquo; Vinta says, ldquo;Me Too has brought the discussion about sexual violence into the mainstream, and has brought men into the discussion as well. Therersquo;s a tectonic shift in the discourse.rdquo; ldquo;We need to create safe spaces for everyone ndash; whether they have support systems in their industry or they are outsiders. Only then can women feel empowered to speak out and seek justice,rdquo; she adds. Chinmayi says that itrsquo;s only when there is more dialogue that people will feel confident about speaking out. ldquo;We as a society are in a constant state of denial that something like this can even happen,rdquo; she says, ldquo;We need to understand that itrsquo;s possible that an extremely talented individual could also be a sexual predator. Itrsquo;s possible that someone whorsquo;s work we have really loved is a sexual predator. We, as a society, need to figure out how wersquo;re going to treat someone whose work we love, admire and respect ndash; but the man has personal failings.rdquo; ldquo;If the culture of silence needs to stop, then hear us survivors out. Without shaming us. Without judging us,rdquo; says Nandhini. Most importantly, we need to dismantle power structures that enable such sexual violence, as Niharika Singh said. ldquo;Itrsquo;s time to realize that the pompous, neoliberal, savarna feminism is not going to liberate anyone. Unless the Savarna feminists dismantle the same power structures from which they have benefitted, women in this country will continue to be gaslit, exploited and maligned; their dreams thwarted, voices silenced, bodies assaulted and histories erased. The selective outrage of the supposed lsquo;liberalsrsquo; and lsquo;Indian leftistsrsquo; benefits only their convenience, and we most note that it finally took a Dalit student, Raya Sarkar in academia and a beauty pageant winner, Tanushree Dutta, to burst the Bollywood bubble while they silently looked on for years.rdquo; nbsp;