#take my precautions as a criticism of themselves

[terreurs]

i love the above ^ comment and want to add:

being willing to discuss your own precautions (or lack thereof!) is huge as well. even if you take few or none of the above precautions, being able to articulate that (without taking the question as an accusation) means a lot to me. be honest if your cousin tested positive after christmas, i'm not going to be mad that you made the decision to see family (so did i!) but it'll help me make my own choices with all the info. if you usually mask, but you fell off to spend time with people you missed, i get it, that's ok, thanks for telling me!

i'm never asking to quiz you or ridicule you. it's possible i'll decline plans if the risk is too high for my comfort, but it's not a punishment. it's really just communicating needs and figuring out what works best between us.

be safe, be kind, be honest. it means the world!

Covid Update, USA, late December 2023: Buckle up, folks.

Takeaway from his (very informative) thread:

Wastewater counts are obscenely high right now, belying the official case numbers. Considering that we've stopped collecting or reporting most COVID data, wastewater is the best way we have to judge the actual infection rate now.

We are currently seeing ten million new infections a week, and can expect that to greatly increase within the next three weeks.

If you've stopped masking, please start again, for your own safety and the safety of your community. Many hospital systems are already trending toward being overwhelmed right now; let's do what we can to lighten their burden.

Avoid unnecessary gatherings where possible.

Ventilate your spaces well (this is a good time to build that Corsi-Rosenthal box you were thinking about! I made one, it's great).

And just from me, personally--now's a good time to reevaluate casual habits. I've been careless, again, about touching my face. Time for me to knock it off!

This is a period where we need to act with more care. Not a time to panic, but a time to be more cautious.

[motheatenscarf]

Amidst all the James Somerton fallout, I think it's important to remember not to moralize whether or not you or others fell for his grift.

Obviously, if you were rallied into being one of his attack dogs on social media when he put some pretty heinous hits out on people, uh. You might have other problems and should probably evaluate how you spend your time online and how you treat other people before you start caring about the rest of the points I'm about to make. Priorities, etc.

But for the rest of us, it's surprisingly easy to miss just how awful a creator can be.

If you only watched his videos that caught your interest, if you don't really follow creators on social media, if you skip livestreams because watching Some Guy talk unfiltered into a bad camera angle with shitty lighting for hours on end sounds like a fucking nightmare to you, you're not really gonna catch most of this shit. At least, you're not gonna catch most of it from any perspective but the one he tries to spin.

This is a reminder to be skeptical and to trust your gut and check sources if something sounds wrong, but also. Uh. That's still the creator's responsibility not to plagiarize and to fact check their work. You're not morally obligated to be as thorough in curating your experience as someone who is making sure they take every ethical precaution before absolutely destroying a "creator's" credibility in a video like H-Bomb's or Todd in the Shadows'. You're literally just some guy. Most people, myself included, watch these videos as background noise while doing at minimum one other task, you're not gonna google every damn thing he says, especially not on media analysis, where the POINT is to have one's own opinion. THEY'RE the ones trying to be "influencers," or, laughably, "creators." The standards are on them.

And for the isms, phobias, and misogyny, well. Frankly, for my own perspective, I gaslight myself all the damn time when I see red flags. Good Allyship™ has been telling me for years to ignore my own discomfort when someone criticizes a privileged group, especially one I'm a part of. I'm a cis asexual white-passing and probably neuroatypical woman, I am constantly trying to be aware of my own relative privilege while simultaneously doubting my own reaction to things. Despite this, I'd still liked to think I'm a skeptical person, but nobody's immune to everything. Everybody has weak spots.

If you got duped or fell for James' scam, that sucks. I feel ya. I fell for it too, I've seen probably 40% of his catalog over the last couple years and really liked what I'd seen. I recommended his channel and videos to people even if I didn't always agree with every point he made, but it felt important to at least consider what to me seemed like a unique perspective that had value or added to a conversation. There are red flags within his content, his analysis, his rate of publishing, his weird diatribes, that in retrospect, really all added up into things I should have known better than to ignore. But, for reasons I'm interrogating and am adding to my list of things to be aware of about myself, I didn't ignore them, and got grifted. I donated to his patreon a few times, probably gave him like $20 grand total over the years, about as much as I've given H Bomb. The important take away here isn't to be ashamed of the fact that you were fooled, it's to remember that you're fallible.

And it's good to recognize that about yourself. Everyone is, and the ones who say they aren't are lying. They're either gonna be the next person to feel really stupid and foolish when they fall for a scam, or are themselves the grifter.

No one is immune.

[jewish-vents]

I actually think the American “not in my name, “as a Jew,” “All Eyes on Rafah AI image (never said anything about 10/7)” Jews are the most narcissistic people imaginable. they’re like “I just can’t support the senseless killing of children” NONE OF US SUPPORT THAT, it is tragic - but where tf were all of you when children were killed, tortured, and kidnapped from Israel and you said nothing??? where were you when the US had done even worse and caused terrible casualties in wars and weren’t taking anywhere near the precautions to warn or protect civilians and to avoid collateral damage as much as possible? the US, and not just republicans because Obama did it too, has struck targets where children died on purpose. but no criticism for that, crickets when it’s your own country, but when it’s Israel they have to rush to misinformation to make themselves look good to all their leftist followers. the double standard is unreal but so is the selfishness. “not in my name,” cool because none of this is ABOUT YOU but great job making the entire diaspora less safe for your fellow Jews with your virtue signaling.

.

[iatrophilosophos]

Long covid is real, AND, long covid trutherism is a quasi-reactionary conspiracy theory for people who think they're too smart and leftist for conspiracy theories. "Everyone is stupid and meaner and Worse now than they use to be and it's their own fault for not taking Hygenic Precautions because they're stupid and bad. The evidence of this is that I don't feel like I did when I was 25/20/15 anymore and literacy rates are down. Look at this graph that goes up."

"Fascism is winning/conservatism is happening because everyone got stupid from long covid" is a deeply ableist and quasi-fascist position.

& I feel like i have to constantly disclaim/disclose that like...I fucking care about long covid! It's real! It's a problem! There's a lot of it! I do actually spend a significant amount of my time working on this as an issue! & it is actively damaging to the cause of long covid management, to disability justice as a whole, to political theory and fucking critical thought itself to say that every problem (subjective, measurable, or in between) is the fault of the One Big Bad Brain Disease.

& it isn't that the situation isn't as bad as the Long Covid Truthers say. It is worse.

I AM NOT ANTI MASKING: AND: some of yall are literally magical thinking abt this shit. Wearing a mask will not save you from getting older, it won't save you from poverty and subsequent health problems, it won't save you from the destruction of the biosphere. We *are* all getting sick, we *are* all miserable, and we NEED robust, critical, thoughtful, multifaceted and multitactic strategies to survive; we need robust medical literacy that doesn't start and stop with one disease; we need robust engagement with the fact that the logics of industrialized medication development are a dead end and having a lil four thieves bioreactor *to the extent anyone is even doing that! is not as helpful without the currently-disintegrating state of global trade and ecologically extractive precursors, we need drugs that can be derived from phytochemicals & shit like ethanol, YESTERDAY.

I deleted the sappy call to action because it's like, whatever. Talk to me if you actually want concrete steps to investigate wrt joining automous medical efforts but the point of this post is that letting this line of thinking slide was always a mistake and we need to stop letting ppl who call themselves disability justice advocates spew the most rancid shit you've ever heard about disabled people.

[karenandhenwilson]

"Don't trust any statistics you haven't faked yourself." That's a quote my math teacher in 10th grade put on the front page of our statistics exam that year. And it's stayed with me, taught me to be cautious. It's not always so easy to take apart a so called statistical analysis as the one I read yesterday, though.

Let's talk about how the tag system on AO3 works for the free tags.

There are tag wranglers who group tags together that appear to have the same meaning. That creates a mix of different tags that are originally meant differently that can be found under the same parent tag. And that means you'll find all different kinds of stories under a certain tag that you really weren't looking for.

The "Chimney Han bashing" tag for example.

Go to the oldest story you'll find when you filter the tag. It's not a Chimney bashing fic. I'm not even sure which of the tags on the story have made it appear under "Chimney bashing". It's a pretty lovely written (as far as I've read, and I haven't read much of it because I can't deal with a cancer storyline right now) fic about Chimney's journey after he is diagnosed with cancer in season 2. It's focused on Chimney, Hen, and Maddie. But you don't even need to go into the story to figure that out, you'll see it right in the tags.

So I dare to say that any statistical analysis that even mentions this story but doesn't point out it's actually a very decidedly Chimney positive fic that somehow shows up in the Chimney bashing tag is flawed from the get go. You really wasted your time writing all that when you couldn't even look at your data without your bias showing from the very first moment.

And this is really just the most obvious flaw in that whole thing. I'm not going to adress much more of it, because my time was already wasted enough reading the original post, but one little reminder of 9-1-1 fandon history under the cut.

There are a lot of common tags that show up if you just filter by the "Chimney bashing" tag. Like "not Chimney friendly" and "Chimney critical". And those tags are mostly put in place because you'll have Chimney stans jumping at your throat in your comments about anything that looks at any of Chimney's actions even just a little critical. Many of those stories don't even mention Chimney much, but some of his actions are discussed by other characters from their POV, and therefore aren't always very favorable. But because in 2021 and 2022 a small group of fans decided to harass everyone who didn't worship their two favorites, many writers saw themselves forced to be extra cautious with warning about that.

If you really want to do an analysis about the "Chimney bashing" tag, you'll have to do the work and actually separate the different tags and then also check if that tag is warranted or just put there as a precaution so Chimeny fans know to stay away. (Not that they ever learned that lesson until the moment they attacked a Korean artist for depicting a Korean character "wrongfully" earlier this year and were called out for their bullshit. And instead of apologizing they cried about being the victims of harassment and then promptly left tumblr.)

[covid-safer-hotties]

These Are the Drag Artists and Organizers Fighting to Make Queer Spaces More COVID Safe - Published Aug 21, 2024

This article was produced in partnership with The Sick Times.

After becoming disabled by a COVID-19 infection they caught on tour in 2022, Themme Fatale went from being a high-flying trapeze artist to being homebound. Before developing Long COVID, much of the popular circus performer’s career had involved risk — setting themself on fire, flipping through the air, lying on beds of nails — but the danger of these stunts began to shrink in their mind compared to the risk of the airborne virus.

From home in Melbourne, Australia, Fatale began to closely follow Long COVID research, connecting the concerning findings about the disease, which affects every organ system, to their numerous symptoms. What they didn’t understand was why their local queer community — and society at large — continued to put themselves at risk of COVID-19, especially because Long COVID is more prevalent in queer and trans people.

It led Fatale to take action. In February 2024, Fatale launched Clean Air Narm, one of over 30 volunteer-led initiatives around the world modeled after Chicago’s Clean Air Club. These organizations lend out high-quality air purifiers to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by reducing virus in the air at indoor venues.

“I started [Clean Air Narm] because I don't want to see all my friends disabled in the same way that I have been,” they say. “If you lead with a solution, people are sometimes more open to hearing about what the problem is in the first place.”

Guided by a strong commitment to community care, a diverse group of queer performers, drag kings, and other event organizers are filling the gaps of global government failure during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Through clean air organizations, mask requirements at shows, and other COVID-19 mitigation efforts, they are making public spaces more accessible and safer for everyone, all while selling out shows.

Here’s how many clean air clubs work: Organizers fundraise in their communities for a fleet of air purifiers and/or far-UVC devices, lamps that emit a type of ultraviolet light that can reduce indoor airborne microbes by 98%. Because these technologies are expensive — lights and purifiers can each cost thousands of dollars —, clean air organizers offer them to event organizers in their community through a “lending library.”

Volunteers of the clean air initiatives then distribute the purifiers to event organizers who install them at venues, often coupled with other COVID-19 mitigation tools like masks and rapid tests. Mutual-aid groups called mask blocs, which distribute respirators and other items to their communities for free, sometimes help with events, too.

While these precautions make events safer, they don’t fully eliminate the risk of spreading or catching COVID-19 at an event. Clean air initiatives are often careful to advertise events as “COVID-safer,” not “COVID-safe.” Some advocates have also criticized these clean air clubs for prioritizing entertainment events, arguing that resources like air purifiers and high-quality masks should be used for the most vulnerable communities that can’t afford masks, including hospitals, prisons, or public schools.

Still, with COVID-19 at very high levels multiple times a year and many people still going out to concerts and shows, these multiple layers of precaution do reduce spread of the disease in important venues. The fight for cleaner air in public places is broad: Public health experts and others have also proposed clean air mandates in public buildings, including Harvard University’s Healthy Buildings Program, Long COVID Kids, and Congressman Don Beyer’s Airborne Act 2024.

After founding Clean Air Club in 2023, Chicago resident Emily Dupree was met with an overwhelming demand for her club’s HEPA air purifiers. The success led her to write a guide to creating a clean-air organization. More than 30 autonomous initiatives around the world have been implemented and improved on the guide — and they’re popping up quickly.

“What we all have in common is a deep commitment to free access to life-saving technology in the midst of an ongoing pandemic,” says Dupree.

While Clean Air Club purifiers are for any organizers who request them, Dupree has noticed the resource has been more popular with members of the queer community.

“It is not surprising to me that so many of us creating these clean air clubs and putting in so much work for our community are queer,” Dupree says. “This idea of care as a radical and very powerful foundational value for mutual aid organizations is closely aligned with queer politics.”

The queer community is no stranger to mutual aid. During the peak of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s and ’90s, lesbians and other queer people started food banks, devoted their time to caretaking, donated as “blood sisters”, treated people with the disease, and provided other life-saving volunteer services while mainstream society stigmatized and abandoned people with AIDS.

Today, clean air organizations, mask blocs, and other COVID-19 mutual aid groups exist as a temporary solution for the widespread institutional failures of local, city, state, and federal governments that have an obligation to safeguard public health from COVID-19 and have instead completely failed to live up to that obligation, as Dupree says. “[These initiatives] give us a glimpse of what life could be like if only these principles were adopted at a larger scale.”

Dupree would like to see institutions that have the power to make large-scale, permanent changes in the interest of public health — including schools, public transportation departments, and prisons — improve their indoor air quality through the use of air purification and far-UVC technology. She’d also like to see mask requirements reimplemented in high-risk environments like hospitals, where many people have died after being exposed to COVID-19 while seeking life-saving care.

It's pretty straightforward, Dupree says. “What we need from the government is what they did at the turn of the century to eradicate cholera from our public water. We need them to clean our indoor air.”

In the absence of these measures and few to no mitigation efforts today, the public is at continued risk of COVID-19 infections and Long COVID, which affects more than 23 million Americans of all age groups. More than 400 million have the disease around the globe, according to a recent review in Nature Medicine. The ever-present threat of the virus also makes it unsafe for disabled and other high-risk people to participate in everyday life, seek safe medical care, and do essential errands.

While many mutual aid groups are run by queer people, numerous LGBTQ+ organizations and advocacy groups are failing to make their spaces and events safe and accessible. Education about the risk of Long COVID in the community is sorely lacking.

But there are exceptions: In Los Angeles, two drag king-led shows, Disabled Cable and Them Fatale (not associated with Themme Fatale) have made their shows more COVID-safe thanks to the help of testing, mask requirements, and their local clean air organization, Airgasmic.

Founded in 2024 by popular drag king Dick Swagger, Airgasmic runs a lending library of crowd-sourced purifiers specifically for drag shows and other queer events. And while the volunteer service has been successful, it has also exposed how difficult it can be to get venues and some patrons on board with COVID-19 mitigation methods, particularly masking.

“A lot of people aren't keeping up with the science,” Swagger says, explaining that he spends most of his free time volunteering for Airgasmic and educating his community online about COVID-19 and Long COVID. “More people tend to listen to me when I’m in drag.”

Swagger stopped performing live in 2022 after seeing the toll Long COVID has taken on the drag and queer community in Los Angeles. He knows 14 people in his local drag and queer communities with Long COVID, he says, adding that “it is like watching a slow-motion car crash” as more continue to get infected with COVID-19.

“I had to stop performing. I became increasingly frustrated,” he says. “I was trying to protect [my local drag community] and protect myself because I can't afford to become disabled.”

Leona Love, a drag king and queen who co-created Disabled Cable, says one of the most difficult aspects in organizing their show was finding a venue that would help enforce a mask requirement, a challenge other performers and organizers who spoke with Them and The Sick Times also faced.

As an ambulatory wheelchair user, Love says that a lack of accessible venues has kept them from performing at venues in Los Angeles in the past. The underlying ableism in the drag and queer community led them to co-found the show, which highlights disabled performers.

“The way I like to tell it honestly is that it is a project that was born out of rage and channeled into love,” they say.

But after finding a venue called Cantiq in Echo Park that fully supported their mitigation efforts, Love’s first show drew such a large crowd that they had to set a capacity limit for their sophomore performance so it would be less cramped and therefore safer. Now, the event regularly sells out.

“Getting to see the response to our show has been so affirming that our community still does care about COVID-19,” Love says. “We want to keep each other safe. Sometimes it’s about providing the right spaces and the right information to inform people how they can do that.”

“I do wish, however, that there were spaces outside of what we are building that were taking us into consideration as much as we are taking everyone in the community into consideration.”

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

TW cocsa, emotional abuse

I have a very hard time explaining and expressing my trauma but I am looking for validation and possibly words to explain what I went through as I have a hard time identifying it

I experienced what I feel was cocsa as a kid, I was pinned down and kissed repeatedly by a kid I barely knew in what I can only explain in a sexual manner. I wasn’t exactly afraid in the situation but I felt confused and wanted to escape.

I feel the cocsa term fits this but I also feel kinda odd using it as I just keep thinking that what I experienced is lesser compared to the SA others experienced

Another thing that I experience, and this is ongoing, I have a parent who I can only describe as emotionally immature, reactive and micromanaging.

They are constantly criticizing my other parent and I for things we do, a lot of times raising their voice or just straight yelling at us over it.

This can be in public or in private and a lot of times at random. he tells us we lack commons sense (mostly because of us doing certain things different from them) yet lacks common sense themselves. Anymore we state our opinion or how we feel, they just dismiss it.

I feel this is emotional abuse but my brain still feels that it isn’t bad enough to be abuse because other than this they’re really good to us and financially support us.

-🦎

Hi 🦎,

I'm so sorry to hear about everything you've been through. I can understand why you feel that it may not be accurate to label these experiences as cocsa or emotional abuse because perhaps you have heard of "worse" stories. But it's important to remember that comparing your trauma to others minimizes your own experiences. As a survivor you should choose whatever label you feel is most fitting. It's okay if you want to use the terms cocsa or emotional abuse, and it's also okay if you would rather use something else.

Some abusers act nice sometimes or support you in certain ways so that you feel guilty for feeling hurt, holding resentment, or wanting to leave. If an abuser empowered you to believe your own judgment and common sense, you would be more likely to act upon the urge to leave. But if an abuser convinces you that you're always wrong or exaggerating, you're more likely to stay, which is what they want. Similarly, if abuser purely mistreated you, it would be easier to recognize it as abuse. But if they also financially support you or treat you well other times, it's harder to rationalize leaving, which is also their goal. Feeling like it's inappropriate to label this as emotional abuse can hinder you from taking precautions and seeking safety.

If you can access or afford it, a mental health professional such as a therapist could help you process your experiences and rebuild confidence in your own credibility and perception of events. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[komohine]

What do you think of James being trans? (Obviously a headcanon haha) I might just be projecting I'm definitely projecting, but I think it makes sense.

I hc him has having an inferiority complex when he was younger, which is something me and a lot of fellow transmascs can relate to! The feel of having to aggressively outdo your AMAB peers because you're constantly being fed the idea they're somehow inherently better.

I also think it would be very silly if he hated Keith as a kid for this reason, reasoning he's a "real boy", only to learn Keith is trans too. T4T jaith or smthn idk lol

Also James is gender.

(also I really adore your art! Thank you for taking the time to read my silly headcanon)

I think hell yea 🫡 Even though it’s not my personal headcanon (in my personal headcanon their cis and transness is ambiguous). Withij my headcanons, both canon compliant and college au, there is never really a situation that arises where the distinction of their cis/transness becomes necessary or significant so i really just never mention it and leave it up to the interpretation of the reader

Its probably bcs my prior fandom space has traumatized me so if im gonna be honest i dont really think about characters genders beyond what they express themselves as 😭 you are boy? Ok! Sorry transfetishization haunts me hetalia and genshin were horrific spaces to be in… i have nightmares about people making one character from an mlm ship trans just for “realistic mpreg”. Oh my god mpreg keith is genuinely so disturbing i get distraught when i think about it. Also this may just be a precaution because of the voltron fandom? Because I came into this fandom like a month ago with the prior knowledge that this place is a literal minefield of fetishizers and weird people. Like do you get it… if i, for example, mention explicitly that my keith is trans theres gonna be people fetishizing that. If i mention he’s cis there’s gonna be people fetishizing that. So my defence is to just not mention it! Schrodinger’s gender!! 30 year old women stop writing crazy p0rn of highschoolers challenge.

Its the same with freaky headcanons like i will occasionally try to think of some for writing and metaphor purposes but i will get flashbacks to when a 13 year old asked me “whos the top and whos the bottom” about my ocs on discord and then my train of thought just stops there. Its like a kill switch. “Freaky jaith? Uhh well-” “whos the top and whos the bottom” “ok nvm 😇” like i personally love artsy and tastefully done innuendo art pieces but i do not trust the fandom to have a great enough level of critical thinking to see past the freaky to see the angsty metaphors i pack my art with.

But i think T4T jaith is fire james can now have internalized homophobia AND internalized misogyny or something!! Yay!! Adding more shit onto his need for perfection and to be a “real man” or something whereas keith dont gaf! And keith can teach james to not gaf!!! Yay!!!

[kismetconstellations]

@sockdooe, You are not being stupid. I want to establish that right away. You're not stupid. You are understandably cautious because this fandom has a deserved reputation for being one of the worst in recorded history due to its rampant toxicity and K/L shippers, especially, having a penchant for harassing any and everyone with differing opinions.

I am so sorry that this environment has been so hostile toward you. You didn't and still don't deserve that. Fandoms are supposed to be fun, occasionally self-indulgent, places of escapism. Not overwhelm participants with intense anxiety because they're expecting to be attacked for expressing love for a certain character or ship, or even a dissenting opinion.

One of my dearest friends shared a post with me, the other day, that I find very apt for our ongoing predicament as Shiro fans.

"Sometimes you see discourse ™ so mindbogglingly dumb you just have to be like, 'That’s the kids talking. That’s the same as when two toddlers are having an intense conversation and it’s totally detached from reality, but they’re very serious about it. That’s not for me that’s for the kids'."

It can be fun, or sometimes even feel imperative, given how often they rile me up, to challenge these hate-fueled, mindbogglingly dumb, detached from reality takes. But, we don't have to engage with them. We always have the option to remind ourselves, "That's the kids talking. That's not for me, that's for the kids."

You are not "stupid" for taking precautions to protect yourself from vitriolic subsets of this fandom. And, yes, anyone cheerfully looking to spread hatred for Shiro while tacking on, "I still love him/I don't hate him, but", as a preemptive shield from criticism, is provably vitriolic. You have to have nothing worthwhile going on in your life and an unquenchable need to start petty drama in order to sit around and invent reasons to hate a gay, disabled, neurodivergent trauma survivor who epitomizes selfless heroism and who has chosen to remain gentle in spite of everything that he's been through.

"Lance was more warm to the mice than Shiro to Keith."

What's that? Sorry, child, I can't hear you over Shiro canonically drawing Keith into an embrace in full view of everyone after learning that Keith shares the blood of the species that made Shiro's life a living Hell for a year.

There is a saying, "You don't choose the favorite character. The favorite character chooses you." While I do find it invariably tends to ring true, it is interesting how people with certain personality types gravitate toward specific characters, and then latch onto them with a fierceness that can only come from intense personal projection.

I'm not knocking anyone for this. I project at least a bit onto my favorite characters, as well, as I'm certain most people do. It comes with the "self-indulgent escapism" territory.

It just sucks that L/K-shipping fans of either character have chosen to make their intense projection onto these characters into everyone else's problem. Particularly Shiro and Allura, and I imagine even Pidge (given that I've seen more than a few fics bashing her for supposedly being mean to Lance) fans.

No, making K/L canon would not have "fixed" the inept writing, inherent ableism and ageism, and deplorable treatment of trauma survivors that tacitly endorses them martyring themselves. All that would have accomplished is setting a precedent that targeted harassment and attempted extortion works. The showrunners absolutely did the right thing in not caving to the demands of a horde of entitled brats who actively attacked them for two years, lobbing accusations of pedophilia at a father. Which could have completely ruined his life and resulted in his children being taken from him had anyone taken these preposterous claims over a harmless ship between two legal adults in a cartoon seriously.

I'd like to consider it a form of serendipity that we crossed paths with each other in this cesspit of a fanbase. ❤ As I informed another blogger, a few days ago, finding another Shiro fan who doesn't simply view him as "hot bara Daddy Dom I want to imagine banging my self-insert of choice", will always be a breath of fresh air.

(Sidenote: I thought baras were supposed to be hairy, as well as tall and ripped. Shiro is a bit too hairless to qualify, no? And, Coran is a Daddy Dom.

Shiro is a Bottom/Submissive through and through.

(o˘◡˘o) )

The "Space Dad" thing, by itself, is kind of cute, and I do love that Josh Keaton derived such joy from it, bless his heart. But, when fans take it seriously and start holding Shiro to the standards of an actual father when canon never presents him as one, that's when it drives me nuts and I start to hate it. In much the same way Lance and Keith fans simultaneously lionizing and woobifying their favorites at the expense of everyone else has done a great job of putting me off of them.

Keith, Pidge, Lance, and Hunk have their own fathers. Coran is Allura's surrogate father. No one on Team Voltron sees Shiro as their dad.

Headcanons that Shiro and Adam adopted and raised Keith are just that. Headcanons. If you find something enjoyable in them, or want to adopt Shiro as the ideal father to your character of choice, that is perfectly fine, so long as you remember that you're working within an alternate universe that has nothing in the show's canon to support it.

Shiro was always a mentor, leader, and/or older brother to the Paladins. He's twenty-five years-old. Not fifty. And, I guarantee if he had tried to pull rank on any of these kids, they would one-thousand percent have fired back with, "You're not my dad!"

The only character who arguably views Shiro as a father is the Atlas; based on Shiro being the sole person she has a connection with, and her modeling her mecha form after his physique.

[spaceman---29]

I get so confused when radfems criticize 'sex work' and libfems reply like 'well criminalizing it will cause more harm!' as if that's… all we're aiming for? When I was a kid, I took it for granted, but now I see how blessed I was to be raised by a mother like that, and I see how much my friends and women and girls online are struggling to accept themselves in totality, in their natural and unapologetic form. Since I was born, I thought it was totally normal for women and girls to be like that … because it should be. Isn t it so fucked up how TIMs will constantly try to deter any woman s sense of safety or power? If a woman says she has big dogs to walk with at night, you ll find TIMs saying "Can it take a bullet " or if a woman has a gun they ll say "I can just twist your wrist and take it from you ". They re always intentionally trying to make us feel threatened and unsafe. TIMs will go the extra mile to find every possible way to antagonize and harm females, if we have the power to defend ourselves, they will do whatever it takes to undermine it because for them, putting females in danger, stripping us of our agency and safety, gives them power and control. And they have the audacity to call themselves protectors and actually delude themselves to believe it. The idea of females protecting themselves and taking precautions angers them, which is why they always feel the need to undermine it. friendly reminder that the large-scale oppression of xxs would not be mathematically possible without the complicity of every man you know. if the mens in your life were truly loyal to you, they would be fucking outraged at what's happening/happened to xxs and it would be virtually impossible for this "minority" of misogynist mens to impact xxs's lives so widely. I get so confused when radfems criticize 'sex work' and libfems reply like 'well criminalizing it will cause more harm!' as if that's… all we're aiming for? When I was a kid, I took it for granted, but now I see how blessed I was to be raised by a mother like that, and I see how much my friends and women and girls online are struggling to accept themselves in totality, in their natural and unapologetic form. Since I was born, I thought it was totally normal for women and girls to be like that … because it should be. friendly reminder that the large-scale oppression of xxs would not be mathematically possible without the complicity of every man you know. if the mens in your life were truly loyal to you, they would be fucking outraged at what's happening/happened to xxs and it would be virtually impossible for this "minority" of misogynist mens to impact xxs's lives so widely. We've all heard about what happened in Afghanistan, where womens have lost all their human rights, but something else has come to light. You see TIMs from all over the world expressing that they wish this could happen everywhere. I'm saying this because I want womens to see the bigger problem here. TIMs worldwide are unhappy that womens are independent. They would love to see womens silenced, to strip away our rights. That's what many TIMs want, and it's visible everywhere. I see it on Twitter and TikTok. The number of TIMs out there who want the worst for womens, who hate the idea of womens working, who despise womens's independence, who believe womens should belong to them is crazy. That's why we, as womens, have to be more careful, more awake, more focused, and conscious. It's a very dangerous time for us now. As womens become more independent and knowledgeable, TIMs want to fight us and any progress made.

[dragynkeep]

The SPOP fandom used to do what the RWBY fandom does with their critics and anyone who made NSFW works. The critics grew tired of the harassment and left, and the NSFW creators went completely underground if they didn't leave completely.

see this is why i didn't believe the inciting ask of "i don't want people to come into your space & degrade your writing" because not only did they reveal very clearly that yes, they did have an issue with my writing & think i'm a pedophile for writing it but — it doesn't even work.

all further quarantining sections of the fandom off does is make it easier for those sections to be subjected to harassment, like have we not seen that over & over again with the repeated inbox attacks on rwde posters for the past couple of months? do we really think it goes differently for lwde posters, especially those posting "problematic" content.

some people just have to admit they're lazy & don't want to take the precautions to keep themselves safe & would rather put that responsibility onto others, only to throw a temper tantrum when it doesn't work.

[freethebook]

It is very telling when a person who has no knowledge of beekeeping tries to demonize beekeeping. And this is demonization, not criticism, because the latter would require some effort. So let's break this down bit by bit.

Source here is ME because I am an amateur beekeeper and even with my limited experience I can debunk all of this easily.

"Actually, beekeepers take many precautions to keep their bees from leaving."

Of course they do, because ONE, bees are a livestock animal and no farmer wants their livestock animals to flee, and TWO, that is just responsible oh my god. Many hives that swarm end up dying from starvation if they don't swiftly locate a new home, and even if they DO locate a new home, if it's in proximity to humans they'll be relocated to an adoptive beekeper ANYWAY at best, and bug sprayed at worst.

"many clip the wings of the queen" This, this just does not happen. It does not happen.

If a queen becomes damaged in any way, the hive will KNOW and it will REPLACE her. They will kill the queen THEMSELVES, and you've now crippled your hive's worker production for a month or more. You do this three times in a row, the hive is just dead.

"destroy new queen cells" Completely unnecessary and honestly a waste. You could instead cut out the queen cells and rehome them into new hives. The nurse bees will take care of the queen cell, rear it to hatching, and bingo brand new queen no effort.

"cull queens they don't like" Actually does happen! But then, if your queen stops laying eggs, or has poor egg production, the hive will eventually die if the queen ISN'T culled. And again, if she is missing a leg or a wing, the HIVE WILL CULL HER ANYWAY. This is just basic animal husbandry.

"and use bee pheromones to prevent a hive from naturally swarming or absconding" If you are taking care of your hive right you literally don't need to do this. Swarming is a stress measure in response to the bees running out of space.

"They also try and prevent mating with the African honey bee, which makes them less docile among other things." HOOO BOY THAT IS A CAN OF WORMS.

So, the African honey bee was introduced way back when in an attempt to make honey bees that were more efficient and cleanly in higher temperatures. They were released by a very dumb European scientist who thought "huh, this cage on the queen super really isn't necessary, i wonder why it's there" and removed it, allowing what WAS a controlled experiment in hybridization to become an invasive species nightmare.

The Africanized honey bee, which is a hybrid of various European honey bees and the African honey bee, IS very efficient and cleanly! It also produces far less honey, is highly aggressive, and will chase designated targets for LITERAL. MILES. AND STING THEM TO DEATH. If they even approach the hive the wrong way. Preventing mating with the African honey bee outside of its natural range is PUBLIC SAFETY.

God.

Incidentally, I don't blame African honey bees for being this way, because they had to evolve alongside the HONEY BADGER.

"during artificial insemination of queens, drones are crushed and ,,spare'' queens are killed."

Queens engage in ritual blood combat for the throne. No actually. If there is a new virgin queen active in the hive, SHE WILL SEEK OUT ALL OTHER RIVALS AND BITE THEM TO DEATH. SHE WILL TEAR THEM APART WITH HER MANDIBLES. IT IS VISCERAL. I don't even know what this user means by "spare queen," they don't explain it and it's not a term that's used in modern beekeeping.

As for drones being crushed during artificial insemination, DRONES DIE WHEN THEY MATE. THEIR PENIS LITERALLY EXPLODES OUT OF THEIR BODY AND BECOMES A MATING PLUG. I, personally, would not enjoy crushing a drone to death, but I would in fact consider it a mercy compared to a slow, natural death by shock.

"and commercial beekeepers even cull their hives during winter, or when they are not producing well."

BUDDY.

Most beekeepers I know struggle to KEEP their hives through the winter. Hive death during overwintering is a very real problem, and that's WITHOUT considering colony collapse disorder, widespread pesticide use, colony collapse disorder, or a range of other ailments that can cause a hive to abscond, die, or swarm.

Adding on that... do you think that beekeeping is a highly profitable business? Or that beekeepers just have unlimited money to continue to buy bees and resources, like some cartoon villain that spends their vast wealth to harm and kill something for their jollies?

The ONLY. And I must stress, ONLY TIME, it is necessary to cull an entire hive instead of rehabilitate it, is when it's infected with American Foulbrood, because you DO NOT FUCK WITH THAT SHIT. It is GOVERNMENT POLICY across North America that if you have a hive with American Foulbrood, you kill the hive, and BURN THE EQUIPMENT. It can survive over FIVE DECADES as an inert spore, and if you can't clean the equipment with literal BOILING STEAM TREATMENT, you are just throwing all that out.

Are honeybees an invasive species in NA? Yes. Do they crowd out native pollinators and spread disease? Yes. But for all you harp on about cruelty to the bee, removing this invasive species would require a COMPLETE CULL NATIONWIDE, and would only end in more problems due to the reduced natural pollinator population and the continuing incidence of said disease.

As an aside, I am so fucking tired of the invasive species argument because like. Chicken is invasive. Beef is invasive. Pork is invasive. 90% of what you buy in a grocery store is invasive. If you want to fix that, you can start a garden of native plants and connect with farmers in your area. Talk with conservation experts.

A lot of the problems with modern beekeeping come from harmful practices that were brought over from Europe. Monocropping requires vast amounts of pollination, but all the natural habitats of natural pollinators don't exist in these sterilized biomes. So the bees are shipped in, varroa or no, to pollinate the area.

This spreads the varroa to the area if it wasn't already, brings varroa BACK to the home turf if the BEES didn't have it already, gives the bees the equivalent of junk food because they have a single uniform food source for several weeks, and exposes the bees to toxic chemicals because monocropping also requires vast amounts of pesticides that harm the bees.

Conservation IS possible. Rehabilitation IS possible. A lot of young beekeepers want to embrace this as a hobby and as a business RESPONSIBLY, and snide armchair disinformation does NOTHING to actually fix the problem.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Wild that folks keep saying beekeepers abuse bees as if bees are not both venomous flying animals and fully unionized

[cats-dancing-in-tutus]

Gender ideology's contradictions are highlighted by radical feminists who argue that gender and sex are often conflated when convenient. While gender activists argue that the two are separate, they often push for access to sex segregated spaces based on gender identity, creating confusion and undermining feminist goals of protecting women's spaces. In Brazil, innumerable Christian organizations suffer no consequences for prohibiting any sort of family planning and publicly backlashing women that use it. In the USA, 1 in 6 woman related to having suffered birth control sabotage. In Somalia, only 7% of women have access to birth control. Afghanistan has banned family planning using the excuse of “birth control being a conspiracy to reduce muslim population”. Marriage laws are often structured in ways that disadvantage women. In divorce, women can lose access to property they helped acquire, be forced to pay alimony, and face lengthy legal battles over custody. These legal barriers make it difficult for women to leave marriages, trapping them in unhappy or abusive relationships. Radical feminists argue that marriage reinforces patriarchal control and should be critically examined. "Who hurt you?" It s a question designed not to seek understanding but to trivialize. The implication is always that her pain is her problem, a flaw in her, not something to be considered or empathized with. And this isn t an isolated phenomenon—it happens over and over. But what does it say about the culture we live in, that this is such a common reaction? Men 's belittlement of women 's safety concerns reflects a deeper cultural problem. When women take measures to protect themselves, such as carrying weapons or using safety apps, many men respond dismissively, suggesting these precautions are futile. This behavior stems from a need to maintain control over women 's sense of security, keeping them in a state of fear and dependence. Well, thats just funny. The way you slick flongy makes me question banana. What do you mean Super Saiyan Form isnt funky anymore? Its been PINGASing all over PINGAS factory! Well, thats just snipley. I cant kebel my way out of this. Go to PINGAS factory and tell them the drabbley female sent you. males! do vegeta know that Why would you skrank a apple like that in the middle of the scary hole?? "but-but-Why is TIM always the one to mutions in The evil lab when things go moist?!!" You can catermich the men, but itll never be scringy.

[libraryofcirclaria]

03 September 1330

Library of Circlaria

Third Level Society: First Version

Story Twelve: Jax Lyons

Part Two: Jax Lyons

They have finally tapped our House for the new Neurovirus vaccination, which I took just today. Already the outbreak on campus shows signs of slowing. Classes have resumed albeit with many precautions being taken. However, everywhere off-campus is still under lockdown.

Nevertheless, I have avoided the Caucus Chamber because of Emma Bastrin, the new Dungeonmaster. While she has resolved not to carry on the Mahathia agenda, she is expanding on Blake's other agendas, including the expansion of his fleet of Watchers, refusal to instill actual Prefects, and the filling of Administrator roles with Blake-loyalists.

At least she abolished the Chamber security figures Blake had deployed on that fateful night.

Regardless, I am avoiding the Third Level Society like I avoid individuals with the Neurovirus. I have been working closely with Williard Kent, who has been recently joined by Susan Parans and, surprisingly, Steve Endon. We've only drafted ideas on paper but have not actually built or revived any Quora-style dymensional planes. Currently, we are in the process of trying to get a hold of Sophia Qalmers.

The Master Pagewriter would have sensed my presence, so I can say with confidence that none of the aforementioned peers is the Pagewriter in human form. Also, I've come to actually enjoy either engaging in or working with dymensional planes...just not with the Third Level Society. I know that it goes against the Pageturner Guild, but I do believe that what we are doing is insignificant in the face of concerns over the Anomaly, which I believe is in no way associated with the Pandemic. Also, I've come to realize that dymensional planecrafting leads one to become strong in problem-solving and critical thinking skills, two skillsets that Pageturner Guild leadership seems to want to reserve for themselves.

In fact, I've had a problem with the Pageturners, not the doctrine but the bureaucracy. They seem to push for unquestioning obedience from their lower ranks, including Observers like myself. So I've resolved to taking things into my own hands, to observe the world and Multi-verse around me in order to gain knowledge of the genuine and unadulterated Truth. On paper, I am still committed to the Pageturner Guild and intend to remain that way. But perhaps my own insight may steer the organization in the right direction.

<- 10 October 1329 <- || -> 13 October 1330 ->