#protect queer kids or else...

[laismoura-art]

Invasions!scorpion: You should like men!

Lisa: eugh! EW, no! Women are hot!

Scorpion!Harumi: yeah!

Invasions!scorpion: no they're not!

Lisa: Yes they-

Lisa: 🤨🤨🤨🤨

Harumi: thats gay!

Invasions!scorpion: no, i-

Alt!Hanzo and Kuai, choosing violence: YOU'RE GAAAAY!

They're here for their besties

Zanho should've watched what he was saying

(wanted to make a video of this, but i couldnt find any templates 😭 if i do, I WILL)

Zanho: Hey, I'm not gay! Please, babe, take me home😔

Twuai: On it, babe!

Lisa: Well... I guess gays can be evil, too, right?

Harumi: Gays can be whatever they want... I guess?

Alt!Hanzo and Kuai are always ready to dive head first for their girls!😌💙💛

And Bi-Han, too! Ultimate ally!🖤

(Please doooo👀👀)

[dukeofthomas]

Jason Todd's the aroace guy who doesn't realize he's aroace but is also not oblivious to how big a driving force sexual attraction is for other people. He's the type to dislike and judge men for thinking with their dicks so much and kind of think himself better than them because of the fact that he doesn't

[scarycranegame]

you know kosa is a horrible fucking idea when even the kids it's claiming to protect are rallying against it

[vengeful4ever]

you know hot take but I think if you cannot handle your emotions and easily overreact maybe you shouldn't be a teacher

[scientia-rex]

For the most part, my approach to prescribing hormones is “sure,” but I will note that the one thing I lean HARD on patients about is smoking. If you’re transgender, and you’re on hormones, the number one thing we want to protect is your cardiovascular health. That’s frankly the number one thing I want to protect in all my patients, but anyone taking exogenous hormones is at higher baseline risk. And the best thing you can do for your heart is DON’T SMOKE. It’s a bitch to quit, and I didn’t even smoke much or long before I quit in my late teens, and I STILL didn’t enjoy quitting and had smoking dreams for years. It’s harder to quit than just about anything else up to and including crack and heroin, and that’s coming from a patient of mine who recently passed in her early 60s who’d done all of those things—for years and years—but eventually was able to quit everything except smoking. And that killed her. She developed severe COPD and eventually called to say her blood oxygen saturation was dipping into the 70s, which is incompatible with life. She was lucid enough to decline medical care, including refusing to call 911 or go to the ER. A week later, after both I and one of our outreach nurses had contacted her to ask her to please go to the ER, I got a notification that she’d been found dead. She had been so frustrated that she wasn’t a candidate for a lung transplant.

One of my oldest trans patients is in her late 50s. She’s had blood clots that went to the lungs. Repeatedly. Smoking raises that risk. Estrogen raises that risk. She’s a veteran with PTSD; of course she smoked.

These aren’t theoretical. These are humans I’ve cared for over years of their lives. I have been rooting for them—my beloved former addict, who spoke without shame about her years of homelessness and drug use in the city; my queer elders, who are slowly trading in their motorcycles for power scooters. I want everyone to live their fullest, best life.

Smoking doesn’t fit into that. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die like that—not now and not later. I want you to have the future that you may not be able to see yet, but exists.

Since I moved home as an out queer, word got out, and there’s a whole apartment complex of lesbians in their 60s to their 80s who come see me—sitting next to their wives in the office, nagging about blood pressure meds, tattling about not having gotten the shingles shot they said they would. To be clear, when I was growing up in town, I knew no lesbians. Not one. I knew one gay kid in my class, which eventually turned into two. We were it. To see these women living decades with their wives and being able to squabble like any couple in my office over who was supposed to bring their home blood pressure cuff in for us to check it… it means the world to me.

[voidcatdoll]

What actually happens is that society uses any failure of an outed male predator to reach societal standards of normality as a justification for why this is an exception and there is no structural problem.

all you fucking idiots do all day is jump at the opportunity to link trans women with masculinity and manhood. Transmisogyny is not formulated as misogyny aimed at “failed men” because trans women are not failed men! they are women! Insisting otherwise is straightforwardly transmisogynistic! Trans women are treated like failed women, they are not “failed men” because trans women are not treated like men if they are outted or don’t pass - a failed man is still a man, a trans woman is not a man, they are not treated like men, when they are misgendered or harassed or violated or attacked they are being treated like disposable, failed women, not men, never men - they are not afforded that privilege because they are not men and are not viewed as men, especially not by cis society. This is not a coherent articulation of transmisogyny because it is a description of the intersection of (say it with me children!) transphobia and misogyny, a compounding oppression that treats trans women as sexual predators, as dangerous, as degenerate women, not as “failed” men, whatever the fuck that means. There is no structural component of anti-masculinism, misandry, or whatever other horseshit term you people come up with in transmisogyny because it’s not fucking about men! Get fucked, you sicken me, you are a transmisogynist & it is a daily embarrassment sharing space with you people on here

[anexperimentallife]

Project 2025 would ban anything the far right considers pornography. The far right considers anything queer-positive to be pornography, and they WILL encode that into law if given just a TINY bit more power.

Have queer fanfic (or trad published literature) or pics of your transition, or of two men kissing, saved to your hard drive? If the GOP get their way, you'd be guilty of possession of pornography. Did you share any of it? You'd be guilty of distribution of pornography. Have a sweet coming of age story with a queer protagonist? That'd be child pornography.

Even now, states are trying to make it a crime to be openly queer in public (by, among other things, classifying dressing as the "wrong gender" anyplace kids might see as a sex crime against children). Oh, and Florida tried (and thankfully failed) to impose the death penalty for the above.

This is just one example of the horrors awaiting us if the project comes to fruition.

And the far right is already screaming that any adult who mentions around kids that queer people exist is "grooming" children. Wear your Pride shirt past a playground? You're now a child groomer. Think they won't put that into law if allowed? You're naive.

The GOP currently controls the Supreme Court (which is how they overturned Roe v. Wade) and has a majority in one branch of congress. Imagine what will happen nationwide with the GOP controlling every branch of government, including supermajoroties in both houses of Congress.

Oh, and top GOP officials have also announced their desire to NUKE Gaza, so don't come at me with, "but I can't vote blue because Biden..." Or tell me how you think Gaza would somehow be better off with Trump and the GOP.

In France, the left and center joined together--even though they disagree vehemently on many issues (get two leftists together and they'll have three positions on any issue)--to stop the far right from totally taking over, because the one thing they ALL agree on is that fascists dictatorships are BAD.

Much the same with the UK finally kicking out their own neo-fascist party, the Torries, to install 400 Labour MPs. Not everyone loves Labour's policies, but virtually everyone with a brain cell recognizes that the Torries are fascists, and that FASCISM BAD.

"Every election, they tell us this is the most important election if our lives!" Yeah, because each election over the past several decades has been more important than the one before, until we are now at a tipping point between remaining a fucked up oligarchy with SOME resemblance to freedom, and an outright neo-fascist military dictatorship.

Trump has literally stated publicly his intent to criminalize dissent, use US armed forces against protesters (Kent State, but multiply it by thousands), purge all agencies and stuff them with those personally loyal to him, and use the DOJ to go after anyone he perceives as a threat to his political power, among other things.

And remember the things he did in office, like pulling the teeth of federal workplace protections for queer folks (which Biden reatored).

I don't care if you don't like Biden or Harris. Neither do I. But the alternative is Trump, and anyone telling you not to vote in 2024, or to vote third party, is rooting for Trump, and for Project 2025. Anyone telling you not to vote does not give one single solitary flying fuck about vulnerable populations in the US or anywhere else in the world.

"You're just being an alarmist!" Right. Like I was being alarmist when I predicted the failed Jan 6 coup attempt. Like I was being alarmist when I said the GOP would try to use control over SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fucking vote.

[lgbtlunaverse]

This page from the adventurer's bible makes me want to cry

Like basically any neurodivergent dungeon meshi fan, I see a lot of myself in the Touden siblings. But I was blindsided by just how much I suddenly related to Falin in this little comic from the adventure bible's complete version.

It's about the Touden siblings' differing relationships with their parents, and why Laios still holds their treatment of Falin against them, while Falin herself doesn't.

We know that Falin was isolated and ostraziced by their village after she saved Laios from a ghost, displaying her uncanny affinity for magic. Her parents, instead of defending her, sent her away, which angered Laios so much he ran way himself before Falin even left for magic school, hoping to make a living so he and Falin could live together alone.

He tells Marcile this, but when she goes to Falin, she says she sees things differently. Her father sent her to magic school to protect her form the rest of the village without having to cause a conflict. He didn't explain that, and we actually see her burst into tears when he says it.

But, well... Laios was gone for a year before Falin went to magic school, and everyone else in the village avoided her. The understanding Falin has with her parents to me looks like one borne out of necessity, she literally didn't have anyone else to talk to.

And this is where we get to the page that made me want to cry

Like I said, I relate to the Toudens because I'm neurodivergent myself. that feeling of suddenly realizing you're disliked, but not knowing what you did wrong or what you should have done instead? Yeah... that's one I recognize.

When I was around 9 years old, the same age Falin is in this comic, a bunch of kids in my class decided to make a "game" where you lost if you touched me. It was basically the 'cheese-touch' from diary of a wimpy kid, except I always had it and couldn't pass it along. They'd pretend I was poisonous or disgusting and run away from me screaming or gagging. The point was to make fun of me. But my autistic little 9 year old ass thought "Oh I get it! It's tag but I'm always it!" So I... played along. Running at a boy and having him fall on the ground screaming in fake pain because you tapped him is, in isolation, pretty funny.

It wasn't until months into the "game" that I realized it was meant to be meanspirited. That the reason I was the one who was always 'it' wasn't an arbritrary rule but the whole point. Because I was weird and gross. I wasn't in on the joke, I was the punchline.

Falin may have come to understand her parents' intentions, but she didn't always. The adventure bible actually tells us that she at first didn't even notice that the rest of their village disliked her. She clearly knows now, but she had to be told. So when her mom tried to exorcise her, she just saw it as an activity she got to do with a mother she usually didn't get to spend much time with because of her poor health. It's only Laios who notices something is wrong.

(Sidenote, Laios being hyper-aware of people's poor attitudes towards Falin but completely blindsided when he's in the same spot, like with Toshiro, is also very relatable as an eldest sibling)

It probably also took Falin months, until after her brother had left and she had no one but her parents, to realize why her mother had been doing all those things.

And I know they're not the same. Even misguidedly, Falin's mom was trying to help her, not make fun of her like those boys in my class. (Though, as a queer person who also cares a lot about the queercoding in Falin's storyline, a parent trying to 'exorcise' their child of a fundamental part of them the parent thinks is evil or corruptive? yeah... that's not perfectly wholesome)

But do you know what I did, when I finally figured out the game was always meant to make fun of me?

To me, it looked like I had a choice.

See, those boys eventually figured out I didn't understand that they were being mean to me. I'd laugh every time I managed to catch one of them, I was visibly having fun. And while it no doubt only made me more of a weirdo in their eyes, they never informed me that I shouldn't be enjoying myself. That the point was for me to feel hurt.

So now that I did know, I had a choice. I could either get upset, and let the insult land as it was supposed to. That wouldn't stop them, because making fun of me was the original goal. Or I could ignore it and go on as usual. They had already accepted that I didn't get it, and they weren't gona stop me from having fun, so why should I?

And the thing is that I had... one friend, in that whole class. One person who actually liked talking to me and hanging out with me. I was lonely. And the 'game' provided me with another social interaction, mean-spirited as it was, that I desperately needed. And it was so delightfully simple. Navigating actual friendships as a kid with autism and adhd was so fucking complicated, and I'd never know when I might break an inivisble rule. But I knew the rules to the game perfectly!

Sometimes, if I was chasing one of them, the others would trap him and hold him down so I could tap him. In those moments it actually did kind of feel like I was playing with them, rather than against them. And it didn't change much, they didnt start actually liking me. But they were willing to roll with the fact that I wasn't upset, and I took advantage of that because I needed to.

So you can look at Falin seeing the best in her parents as her being naïve, but I look at this page and I see myself, at first unable to differentiate between playing and being made fun of. And then later, when I did see the difference, deciding not to get mad about it because that'd mean losing that social interaction, and I couldn't afford to.

Like I said, Falin probably first realized this in the year she spent with her brother gone, and everyone else avoiding her like the plague. If she refused to talk to her parents, like Laios did, she'd have no one left.

I see a lot of people relating to the fight between Laios and Toshiro. that frustration when you realize someone you thougth was your friend actually hates you, and they never said anything, never gave you a chance to fix it because you had no idea that you were even doing something wrong! And I can see that, too. But sometimes, when people don't fully hate you, it feels better to go along with the pretending. Because adressing it won't fix it. Because the problem isn't a specific behaviour, it's you. And if they're willing to tolerate you, despite the fact that it's you, then you'll take it. Because other people do hate you, so this is the best you'll get.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

There is no such thing as a “normal gay guy”.

Or well, there are gay guys who are just gay. Not trans, not nonbinary, not asexual, not any other or additional label. 

There are also gay guys who never dress feminine, do not use any gay slang, only have stereotypical male hobbies and interests, have a deep voice, know nothing about fashion or skincare, do not have female friends, only order beer at bars or whatever else you consider “straight-passing”. 

There are also gay guys who do not wear any rainbow accessories, do not go to Pride events, couldn’t name a single drag queen, do not really strongly identify with the term “queer” personally, do not talk about their sexuality with straight people, want to live a quiet life, do not kiss their partner in public or whatever else. 

All of that could apply to you… and someone who thinks being gay is abnormal will still think you are abnormal. 

Someone who thinks all gay people will go to hell will still say that you will go to hell. Someone who thinks all gay men are pedophiles will still accuse you of being a pedophile. Someone who thinks homosexuality should be outlawed will still hope to outlaw you. And so on. 

You can’t be “normal enough” to win with those people. You’ll still be a target. 

That is not to say that (at least some of) these things can’t have some protective effect. Something like “not talking about your sexuality in the workplace” can obviously be a safety measure. The point here isn’t that everyone needs to be super loud, especially if they don’t feel comfortable or safe. 

The points above ringing true for you is not an issue at all. Nothing wrong with being a masculine guy or preferring to keep quiet! But if you take pride in being a “normal gay guy”, if you feel like it makes you a bit better than the other gays, please know you’re not keeping yourself safe by saying that. You’re just making the world a little bit less safe for those who aren’t, or can’t be, as “normal” as you are. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[therainscene]

I've described myself in the past as "overly-queerbaited" as a way of explaining why it took me so long to come around to Byler endgame as a legitimate possibility... but that's kind of a misleading way of putting it.

Truth is, I've always been too much of a cynical fuck to fall for queerbait... or any other story that promises positive queer rep.

[Sherlock couldn't touch me; I saw this cringe homophobia coming from a mile away. Fans mistaking straight anxiety jokes for meaningful gay subtext was clearly doomed to end in mockery. Nobody deserved to be treated like that... but god, it was easy to predict.]

I think it's a symptom of having grown up under Section 28 -- feeling like I'm being unreasonable for wanting to see queerness normalized is such an ingrained habit that even today I instinctively recoil like a vampire touching sunlight whenever an optimistic queer story falls unrequested into my lap.

But I'm hardly alone in feeling this way -- many queer Millennial and Gen-X fans of Stranger Things are against the idea of Byler because it would ruin the catharsis of watching the gay boy growing up in the same era as we did slowly succumb to the same despair that we did.

[For those who haven't played the VR game: Vecna is speaking in this screenshot.]

There's genuine comfort to be found in painful stories -- this type of catharsis is practically the cornerstone of horror as a genre -- so I can't really fault myself or anyone else for wanting it, despite the obnoxious oversaturation of disappointing queer endings in media.

This is the nostalgia show, after all -- and like it or not, for many middle-aged queers in the target audience, nostalgia is shot through with the pain of homophobia and loneliness.

But do you know who else is a hurt queer(-coded) adult who resents happy endings? This cynical fuck:

Henry personifies despair and loneliness and the dark urge to take our pain out on others -- and when Will is in the picture, I would argue that he also represents internalized homophobia.

Will might represent who we were -- but Henry represents who we've let ourselves turn into.

And I don't think many of us want to admit to that, because that would involve questioning why we have so much in common with the literal villain of the show; why we're still so consumed with self-pity after 20+ years that we're obsessing over the fate of some kid.

I'm not suggesting that wanting a less-than-fairytale ending for a fictional gay boy is equivalent to being a child killer lol. It's perfectly valid to want to see your pain acknowledged, and stories which appeal to that desire deserve to exist.

But between Henry's connection to Will and the cycle of abuse themes of the show, it's clear that this particular story simply isn't about wallowing in the bleakness of growing up gay in the 80s, but about self-actualizing in spite of it all.

So I just can't bring myself to want a "relatable" ending for Will.

As much as I struggle to enjoy positive queer rep, I don't want to be so cynical. I'd thrown up so many walls to protect myself as a teenager that I forgot how desperately I wanted to see just one of those painful queer stories end on the same uplifting note that straight stories were always entitled to: with true love overcoming the odds, saving the day, and living happily ever after.

[But I'm A Cheerleader, a surprisingly fun movie about conversion therapy, is proof that stories like this did exist when I was a teen... but finding them in the pre- and early-internet days amidst so much censorship was a tall order.]

What makes Stranger Things different from most queer stories -- and what allowed it to pierce through my defenses and stab me in the gut -- is that it perfectly mimics those bleak, acceptable-to-the-censors stories from my youth -- only this time, the secret uplifting gay plot twist is real.

Not for the sake of shock value or of grabbing some empty woke points at the last second, but because the plan all along was to slap the audience in the face for believing homophobic lies about the existence of queer happiness.

That's some gourmet catharsis, if you ask me.

Just the possibility that my inner child might finally be vindicated has allowed me to truly let myself want the things I want for the first time in 20 years -- and that's the first step towards finally crawling back out into the sunlight.

Happy Pride Month, everyone. 🌈

[sunny-day-jack-official]

URGENT! Stop KOSA!

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

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

What is KOSA?

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

You can read the following articles about KOSA here:

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

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

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

The quick TL;DR:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Does This Mean?

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

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

Why This Matters Outside of The USA

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

What Can You Do?

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

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

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

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

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

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

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA For taking down my cousin's pride flag?

So my cousin is the most no-nonsense person Ive ever met. He (M28) is very serious, and takes everything really really seriously, but he's still a joy to be around. He's super smart, and the whole family adores him, he's kind of the golden child in our family, though theres zero resentment from the rest of us.

My whole life, he's been this pillar of the "perfect kid" and although he's nice, since he's moved away, no one has been to his apartment or really seen him outside of family celebrations, dinners, weddings, etc.

Last week, he was in a car accident. (another car T boned him) and he was put in an induced coma in the hospital. He's coming out of it now, expected to make a full recovery, but is still expected to stay at the hospital for a while. My aunt, his mother (F72) asked me and other cousins to go over to his house and collect items he might need. Clothes, books, etc. She took the keys out of his clothes and have them to us, all while my cousin was still out of it.

When we got there, I opened the door to a MASSIVE Gay leather pride flag.

First thing on the wall. When we went into the apartment there was BDSM equipment, gay pride decorations everywhere, and other graphic things that made it clear my cousin is, A, gay, and B, firmly in the kink community. I don't want to get too much into it, but there were certain Polaroid pictures stapled to the bathroom wall that left little doubt.

All of us were needless to say, a little horrified.

To be clear, I am queer, and a MAJORITY of our cousins are as well. None of us had any inclination he is gay, and its clear no one else in the family knows. This was the first time anyone had been in his apartment.

We took a vote, and as the oldest one there I made the decision to hide everything. I took the flag down, I (carefully) put as much of the items that were an indication away in a box and hid them. It was a pretty extensive clean out, but I moved books and other things around on the walls to make it look a little less bare. An hour after that more family showed up at the apartment to help, people like our grandmother, more aunts and uncles and my parents, all of them cleaning or doing dishes or putting food in the fridge to help my cousin's recovery.

A few of the cousins that were there when we first found the stuff have said that I shouldnt have messed with any of it, that the pride flag was on the wall BECAUSE my cousin was happy about his identity. I argued that my cousin hadn't told any of us, isn't out to the family as far as Im aware, and I wanted to protect him in case he wasn't ready.

Further clarification, no one in the family is OUTWARDLY homophobic, but I'm still not out to a majority of my family either, and if i was in my cousin's place, Id want someone to hide my stuff for me.

My cousin still hasn't been released from the hospital, and I haven't found time alone with him to tell him that I moved some stuff in his apartment. When I handed back his keys he looked a little panicked, and I tried to look reassuring.

Im having second thoughts about whether what I did was good, or if I'm projecting my own fear about coming out to family on him. Am I the asshole?

[fullhalalalchemist]

🚨🚨🚨Congress hiding behind "protecting" LGBTQ+ to push for censorship bills that would harm us

May 8, 2023

The EARN IT Act isn't the only bill Congress is rushing through this session that's secret goal is to censor and surveil Americans, especially queer ones.

KOSA (s.1409), or the Kid's Online Safety Act, is being hailed across the mainstream media and congress as the best bill to "protect children online from algorithmic harm" by essentially, blocking content that gives minors anxiety, depression, eating and substance abuse disorders, online bullying and harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse, suicidal behaviors, and addiction. It's gives the FTC, who are politically appointed by the president, and all 50 state attorney generals enforcement power to do this. As long as they can justify a website 'harmed' a minor by having content that leads to 'anxiety, sexual exploitation, and suicidal behaviors', they will push lawsuit over lawsuit to that site until it censors that content for the minor.

Oh, but that's not it, either. HOW will websites determine who is and isn't a minor? Well don't worry, because the bill says "age verification isn't required". That however does nothing to stop websites from pushing age verification. When they're about to be held liable and sued for millions, when there's an age verification lobby that has pushed these bills successfully in half the states, when websites should know "reasonably" that theres a minor, they are GOING to go for age verification. Multiple experts agree that this would happen.

Last year, nearly 100+ LGBT and human rights orgs sent a letter opposing KOSA. They were ignored and Senator Blumenthal (same guy who is pushing the EARN IT Act) met with different orgs to "update the language". Except nothing in the update language changes any of it's impact. Sure, they removed "grooming" from being a target of this bill and instead are focusing on "mental health". Except, the Missouri Attorneys General, in his emergency order banning gender affirming care, cited a number of medical studies effectively claiming that access to gender affirming care is causing young people to experience mental health issues. They will use ANY excuse to censor content.

This is the tumblr purge 2.0 but for the entire internet. It's just as bad as the EARN IT Act. And it has IMMENSE levels of support. You have the national Eating Disorder Coalition, child advocacy orgs, the freaking American Psychological Association, LIZZO!!!! supporting this. It needs IMMENSE levels of backlash from us, the grassroots, the people.

The best way to fight back is to CALL YOUR SENATORS. It's now going to go to the commerce committee for markup, after it will head to a vote. This is going to be fasttracked and most likely voted on this month or June. It's all hands on deck.

Link to call script to read off alongside numbers to call:

A bunch of petitions you can sign (takes less than 5 min)

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

And more information here: Linktree

This is a great TLDR article to read: Vox Article

TLDR; Congress's new bill KOSA that has an immense amount of bipartisan support will lead to internet censorship by giving all state attorney generals, even the ones in Texas and Florida, power to sue websites for "harmful" content and decide what is "dangerous" for minors, force websites to make you upload your govt ID online, and lead to widespread abuse of queer youth. We have to fight back NOW or else we will see an internet-wide purge of any adult and queer content online, globally.

[clean-bands-dirty-stories]

Tread Carefully ~ S.S.

Request: “Stiles x male reader, reader getting hurt trying to protect stiles from a werewolf” by anon

Word Count: 1400+

MASTERLIST

Stiles had been harboring a crush on Lydia Martin for as long as he could remember. Even longer than Scott had known about it; and that was ages. So when he actually became friends with her, he'd thought he'd had a chance.

And then she'd dated Allison.

If he was honest, Stiles really hadn't ever considered that before. I mean yeah, he knew about queer people. But every time he brought it up, people had brushed it off and dismissed it. Stiles especially just wasn't - according to everyone. So he had never thought about it, until his old crush became one of his best friends and then she was taking about it all the time. Telling him about how happy she was, and when he asked, about how she'd realized she was into women. And suddenly he realized something he'd never considered before: he'd one hundred percent had a crush on Scott when they were kids. 

He didn't tell anyone for a long time. Well, anyone but Lydia. She was a fantastic confidante and an even better secret keeper. And she was good at keeping Stiles' sexuality a secret... until he developed a crush on her brother.

Y/n Martin was very different than his sister. They were a unit, they always had been, but where Lydia leaned into expectation to make herself popular and as perfect as possible, Y/n had leaned away from it. He didn't have a lot of friends, outside of the kids in the programming club, and some people he'd met over the internet. He was the type that knew high school was stupid, and thought that made him a little bit cooler than everyone else.

Stiles thought he was awesome. Y/n was putting as little effort into school as possible, focused less on college and more on learning to program and prepping himself to just do that forever. He was smart, which meant he knew that school didn't actually teach you anything you needed to know - as long as you knew what you were heading into. He often talked Lydia's ear off about how school was just preparing you to be part of the machine of society, and rolled his eyes when Lydia tried to get him into a "better outfit" or take him shopping.

But that was actually why Stiles liked him. They had math together, and Y/n made jokes under his breath and talked about how stupid it all was, and then leaned over and gave him pointers and help with the work in a way he could actually understand. He never ran out of patience and didn't find Stiles' burst of energy or hard time focusing or burn out annoying. He encouraged Stiles and hyped him up and when he did a good job and Y/n was leaning over his shoulder grinning at him, whispering compliments to him and joking about having to reward him one of these days, Stiles couldn't help but think that all he wanted in that moment was to kiss him.

Lydia picked up on it too fast. She was at first a little hesitant, making Stiles promise this wasn't about her, because her brother deserved better than being a replacement, but Stiles promised that wasn't it. And he proved it too, even if the pining looked the same. He talked to Y/n and became friends with him and fought against werewolves and other big-bads, and they bonded over being the only two just-humans on the team, but Stiles never reached out to him to tell him how he felt. Stiles didn't want anything from Y/n that he didn't want to offer; which was sweet except Lydia wanted to see her best friend and her brother happy.

So what was she to do except play match maker?

Her butting in was helping, too. Y/n was telling her all the time now about how he liked Stiles, how well they got along, all the stuff they were doing together. About his eyes and his smile and his laugh and how brave he was. About how they made so many plans together and learned to trust each other. About how nice his voice was, and how they studied together and often fell asleep late into the night and woke up next to each other.

And yet... it took Y/n almost dying for either of them to do anything about it.

It was a shit storm like all the others they had to live through. A battle, injuries all around, and Stiles and Y/n trying to find each other because this time they'd gotten separated. It was never good when those two got separated, they were both idiots.

Something that showed more than ever when Y/n rushed into the room, saw Stiles being cornered by a werewolf, and screamed at the top of his lungs. It was a faceless beast at this point, mind controlled by a spell that a witch had cast. She was making their lives hell, and this was only the most recent of poor bastards that had been mind controlled and sent their way. The only way to break the spell was to find the object that mattered to them most and destroy it. This worked because the witch had to cast the spell on such an object, and destroying it broke the spell. But she was aware of this, so she often sent her subjects after whoever found or had the object at the moment.

And right now, that person was Y/n.

So the werewolf turned, getting on all fours and shooting after the teenager, who's eyes went wide as he turned sharply and began barreling down the hallway as quickly as he could. It was a ploy to save Stiles' life, and it was a good one, but it couldn't last forever. The werewolf swiped at him, sending him flying one way and the thing he was carrying flying the other way. Derek arrived that moment, having been tied up before, and managed to fight the creature off while Stiles scrambled onto the scene and burned the object.

It was over.

But the damage had been done.

The pack brought them to Deaton, who immediately launched into stitching the poor boy up and lathering something on him to fight infection and help him heal faster. Then they were all left to simply wait and hope Y/n would wake up. He still had a heartbeat, but shock had hit his system and he still might not make it. A lot of blood lost, a really bad concussion...

Stiles of course never left Y/n's side. Y/n woke up to the boy asleep on his little make shift hospital bed, head on Y/n's leg, holding his hand. Y/n smiled, exhausted and sore and feeling like shit, but unable to deny that Stiles still looked adorable when he was asleep. Y/n ran his hand through Stiles' hair and the boy jolted up. "Oh." He blinked sleep out of his eyes, rubbing his face and shaking his head to clear it. "Hey."

Y/n laughed. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Y/n joked. His voice croaked from disuse and he flinched. "Jesus I sound like I died."

Stiles' smile withered. "You almost did."

There was silence at that. They couldn't meet each others' eyes, couldn't pass that stiffness and awkwardness. Neither of the boys were good with silence and always tried to scramble to crack jokes or entertain or cheer up, but Stiles' bluntness had shattered that. And it was kind of nice. Vulnerable.

"Stiles," Y/n began. "I... liked you." He sighed, shoulders dropping. "Like, really really like you. And I know it might ruin everything, and I don't want you to say you like me back because I almost died. I don't even need you to say anything right now, just, know I like you. And everyone knows you've always liked my sister but-"

At that, Stiles broke. He caught Y/n's face between his hand and pulled him into a kiss. They both sighed, smiling into it, and all the unspoken things seemed to be understood without any of the words needing to be said. They often communicated like this, with just an understanding, and no need for specifics or long rants. Leaning their foreheads together, Stiles still did say one thing. "I like you too." They both laughed, and all the tension melted away from both of them.

"Maybe next time you two need to talk about your feelings, one of you doesn't need to die for it?" Lydia sassed from the doorway. The boys parted, blushing, as she tackled her brother in a hug. But all of them laughed, and for now all of them were okay, and that... that could be enough. After all, they still had a witch to kill.

-

Male Readers: @ravenpuff-oli @sortzz @fadedver

[sharpth1ng]

Ive already posted this in my server, so you may see it twice, but In case you don't see it there im posting it here too.

Im assuming most of you have seen the news about the us election. Honestly im feeling nothing less than devastated, and i would assume Americans are feeling ten times worse. Im so fucking sorry to you all, and I know that doesn't help at all. I feel angry, hopeless, and sad as fuck, and i dont know how to comfort anyone or advocate for the hope i think we deserve.

What I can do is remind you all who you come from.

Women, queer people, disabled people, indigenous people, black people, new immigrants- anyone who experiences marginalization- we have been through this before. Many times. So many lives have been unjustly lost and our rights have been trampled on over and over, and we shouldnt have to be dealing with any of that still in 2024. It feels insane that im even having to write this post right now.

But even with that crushing history, repeating itself over and over, we haven't been silenced. If anything we've gotten louder. We've been having mainstream conversations about oppression and liberation in the past few years that were completely undiscussed when I was a kid. The vocal support for trans people alone, even with the rise of transphobia, is unprecedented.

None of this is meant to tell you that it's alright, or that it's not that bad, because it is that bad. But what I'm telling you is that its been this bad before, only this time we're louder than we ever have been before and we'll be louder still next time. There are more of us than there ever have been before, and if they couldn't take us all out when there were fewer of us they wont manage it this time.

There were drag shows happening in gay bars when it was still illegal to be gay at all. There were Natives preserving language and knowledge out of residential schools, and black people inventing whole new types of art and resistance while they were still being actively enslaved, and those are just a few examples. The point is that we dont stop, we never have. We will keep making art, finding love, and joy, being fucking loud and fighting for each other.

It's ok to hurt, to be angry and scared. Let yourself feel all of those things because its the only rational response to this.

But don't let it shut you down. Your history is one of resilience, survival, and compassion. We're so much more than the oppression we face and we always have been.

Reach out to the people you love and tell them you fucking love them. Make plans to see them. Gather with your community and organize to support each other, find ways to protect each other, and above all else don't stop looking for joy. Don't stop making art. Don't stop showing compassion.

Solidarity is the most important thing we have right now, so don't give up on it.

I don't know how to close this message really, but i want to repeat I'm not telling you to have hope, I'm not telling you it's not so bad. What I am telling you is that you're stronger than you think. You come from strength, you come from people who faced odd that seemed insurmountable so that you could be here today.

If they couldn't take us out before they wont succeed now. We're only going to get louder, angrier and stronger. And when the tide swings back in the other direction, like it always has in the past, they better be fucking grateful that most of us will be fighting for equality instead of revenge.

[starrystevie]

it’s a horribly normal sunday afternoon when everything changes between steve and eddie.

they’re in eddie’s van, windows down and hair flying, rays of a new spring sun warming their winter chilled skin as their arms dangle outside the open windows. some band that steve is sure he’s never heard of is playing loudly though the speakers and eddie looks over at steve with a grin.

the sun gives him a halo like it belongs there, the wind in his curls breaking up the beams to make it look like he’s flying, like hermes or apollo or some other greek god steve cant name while he’s enraptured with the view. eddie's smile crooks up, something mischievous, and he reaches down to grab a tape out of his collection.

“you know what we need?” eddie asks and steve holds his tongue to stop from saying something stupid like 'you'.

the music changes and it’s familiar and loud and, oh no. the crooning first notes of 'somebody to love' cuts into his heart in a way he never expected queen to. he feels like he’s bleeding out, watching eddie’s smile shift and change, playful and wide, and it breaks him. his face crumbles and morphs into something mean, trying to protect the remnants of his guard from crumbling along with it like ancient remains.

"turn that shit off." and steve’s always been a bit of a bitch, eager to fight with bared teeth and bleeding knuckles, but it's never been towards eddie. eddie with his halo of sun and eyes full of warmth and that smile that makes steve feel like he can fly. "now."

eddie scrambles. his hand darts out and fiddles with the volume knob, his smile cracking along the edges and getting soft and worried and steve is made only of anger, boiling over in a tirade. he keeps talking, barely processing what he's saying, but he sees it hurt eddie and that feels right and so fucking wrong all at the same time.

"who told you," he seethes out, hisses through his teeth like a goddamn snake. "it's all just a rumor so don't think for one second that it's true-''

the only person steve has even told is robin, one drunken night with their friends jack and captain morgan, secrets spilling out from them faster than they can make a new drink. he let it slip that he likes queen, relates to queen, and robin cocked her head in that sickeningly endearing way she does, cartoon lightbulb clicking on above her head.

"steve," she whispered, hand reaching out to cover his knee. it was a moment of surprising sobriety when their eyes met and steve felt something click into place for him, too.

"it's okay to be like freddie, right?" his voice was soft, broken and strained, watery smile covering up what little vulnerability he had left.

they danced until sunrise with queen blasting through the way too extravagant speaker system in the living room, screaming lyrics about not wanting to be born at all and asking for someone to find them somebody. they fell into a pile all breathless and dizzy and the relief that flooded steve's system was enough that he could drift into a deep sleep for the first time in a long time.

but now that memory feels tainted, destroyed, because he only told robin and that means she must have told eddie about being like freddie because no one else knew and he thought that robin was the one person he could trust but that seems not real anymore but it's robin and that is the only person who has stuck around but now there's eddie in the back of his mind grinning and that bleeds into him laughing which bleeds into him laughing at steve, turning on a song to let him know he's laughing at him for being like freddie, for being wrong, being wrong, being wrong-

"steve..."

"-it's not even true, anyone can like queen without being a fucking queer, you know? plenty of people like them and are happily married with their 2.5 kids and a goddamn picket fence-"

steve's still ranting when eddie pulls to the side of the road, gravel crunching under the tires, eyes soft and careful as they look over steve. his face feels hot and pinched with his vision blurred from unshed tears that he'll be damned to let fall. his hands are flying around aimlessly in the air as he spits out lie after lie, watching eddie sit and take it unflinchingly.

"steve," he says after a minute of listening, a gentle hand on his knee that steve wants to throw off of him, eager for something tangible to destroy. "stop for a second, please."

he wishes he could but his brain won't let him, so he pauses for a second and catches his breath before starting again and ignoring the way eddie rolls his eyes in disappointment. he rants and he vents and hurls harsh word after word until he can see that eddie's had enough. he wants to keep going, yelling until his throat is as raw as his heart feels, but there are arms wrapping around him and holding him intact so he doesn't fall apart all over the floormats.

"you're okay," steve registers what eddie's saying after a beat or two. he's whispering low into his ear in a repetitive mantra, over and over and over. "you're okay, it's okay. breathe."

it's only after they're both breathing normally that he pulls away.

"what was that about," eddie asks, and it's not accusatory but steve can't help but shy away from the easy way he's looking at him. the tears he had been so good about holding back fall down his cheeks, disloyal soldiers admitting defeat.

"i just-," he breathes out as he keeps his eyes trained to the gear shift. "i thought you knew something about... me."

he hears eddie sigh and steve latches onto it like it's a ray of sun in and of itself. "i know a lot of things about you, steve."

"yeah, but you can't know this one. not yet"

there's fingers tangling into his own and they feel nothing like nancy's or robin's or tracy's or melissa's or heather's and he relishes the calluses that bump into his own. steve doesn't want to look up, he can't look up, but he's a vine and eddie's the sun and he has to face him like it's his life's purpose to do so.

the halo is back around eddie's head again when he finally looks.

"i can wait, if you want me to."