#the internet especially has been such a drag recently

[chiritori]

everything is sooooo Boring rn omfg

[possiblyunhinged]

In the past year, especially with the recent elections across Europe and in the US, it’s become blazingly clear that regardless of your political leanings, everyone is fucking fed up to the nines. You can see it in our attitudes towards traditional media and government. Sure, we land on different conclusions about what might get us out of this mess, but the reality is—it’s not in our hands. It probably never has been.

The Luigi Mangione situation has truly blown my head off my shoulders—the sheer arrogance and disconnect from normal people that traditional media and government officials have shown. Take the Mayor of New York, for instance. Sweet Jesus. He’s like a character from a shit pantomime. Whether you’re on the left or the right, he’s the villain of the piece. People are done. And let’s be real, it’s only going to get worse—because I’m a positive princess like that.

Trump isn’t going to magically make prices drop; he’s literally said as much. I can’t fathom a single politician who could genuinely make a difference when the CEOs already hold all the power. Musk and his ilk were invited to the table long ago, and let’s not forget the donors—pouring huge amounts of money into all political parties. It’s a silent agreement: their influence comes first, their profits are prioritised, and the rest of us are left to scrape by.

What gets me is how people still talk about “the rich” like it’s actors and musicians pulling the strings. Sure, they’re rolling in it, and the entertainment industry has plenty of rot, but compared to the wealth of CEOs? Negligible. The real bastards are the ones we couldn’t even name. The ones cutting corners, exploiting workers, and choking the planet with plastic while pocketing the profits.

Meanwhile, the entertainment industry puts on this Truman Show pantomime—a performance of accountability so we can cheer and boo. Every public takedown, every cancellation, every PR scandal—it’s all theatre designed to make us believe the system works. And while we’re caught up in the spectacle, what the fuck are the people at the top of the means of production doing? Bumping up their profit margins and giving themselves bonuses.

These people live without consequences. And when the internet (rightly or wrongfully) memed the murder of a CEO, they responded with Gotham-level theatrics to reassure their donors that they’ll always protect their own. They even tried to pin terrorism charges on a man whose frustrations most normal people can empathise with.

Why is it that those in power are never arsed about creating a spectacle of a CEO in handcuffs, dragged out for decades of exploitation? Because the system doesn’t just protect them—it is them.

At this point, the only thing these people are achieving is making everyone angrier. And the politicians we like? They’re the ones who seem to reflect the nonstop screaming going on in our heads. The incompetence, the lack of solutions, the sheer disregard for normal lives—it’s all making tensions worse. And it’s going to blow up in their faces. (Not literally—calm down, loves.)

I know I sound like David Icke, okay? But sincerely, I’m fed up and I would love nothing more than a shred of accountability for billionaires—and for politicians and journalists alike to do their fucking jobs.

It’s embarrassing.

[lukolabrainrot]

Long ask anon with an even longer ask (I truly don’t know how to make long story short, but I can do the reverse), sorry. I am dividing this in two parts in case you decide to post this, so it would not be such an essay.

Part 1. Intro

Something has been eating up at me for a while but I only recently gathered the courage to do anything more than lurking. I actually am quite new to this, mostly because I was not allowing myself to even get into this in the first place. I am a very chill person when it comes to celebrities, I truly couldn’t care less about their lives, don’t even follow them on SM (L and N included) (not that I use SM all that much to begin with), I don’t know why but it always seems strange for me to be invested in strangers’ lives. I am not big of a fan girl either, especially media wise, I am much more interested in books and have no patience for tv shows most of the time. All of this to say, this is unusual behavior for me, watching all of the interviews with repetitive questions (those poor actors having to repeat themselves over and over again), paying attention to actors (beyond just knowing their names).

Polin is one of the rare ships that captured my interest, so I was very excited to learn about s3 being them, and when the wait for even the slightest info seem to be dragging on endlessly those interviews served as a great entertainment. Until they were not, until I started noticing things I wished not to. What started as “oh, they are so cute, and charming, and their friendship is so endearing!” very quickly turned into “babes, WHAT THE F*CK DID I JUST SAW/HEARD?” At one point I was honestly thinking “did I miss something? Are they together? What is going on?” So I checked, out of curiosity nothing more, but found nothing OFFICIAL suggesting that (as in N nor L never claimed anything). So I moved on, watched the show, other interviews (my brows still rising at some points), and then post Part 2 premiere I saw the picture on IG.

Everyone on internet seemed to be screaming about Ls’ GF, and being absolutely vile to him, which I found so disgusting I immediately checked out of the situation and turned my attention back on fiction again. It would be insincere of me not to admit to a certain disappoint on such a development, but that was as far as it would go. Though I can also truthfully say that that girl was not giving me the best impression based on the picture, something just seemed off. I only saw one at that point, where it appeared as if they were holding hands, why did it seem off? Because L looked displeased, almost angry, his eyes averted from cameras, while she was boldly looking right on them smiling as if she was walking her red carpet. As I said that was that, just continued watching the show, reading Polin fanfiction, hung out on a Polin reddit account and some Polin Tumblr blogs. And then I stumbled upon your blog (it was already past papgate 2.0), and now I’m on this bloody ship, and can not seem to force myself overboard, because those two are so soulmate coded (and yes, I realize how cheesy that sounds).

What has been bugging me, is that most, if not all, in this fandom seem to be of the opinion that L is the primary reason why N/L are yet to develop into lovers phase of this friends to lovers arc. From outright blaming him to passive aggressively calling him a dummy for not going after N. And I comprehend that most of it comes from the presence of a certain adjacent. But putting aside the OBVIOUS, LOGICAL point that we, non of us, are privy to their real lives, and bts truth, I still don’t see where that point of view comes from. I know that everyone says L is most like his character, so perhaps part of it is projection of that, but for me it always seems that L is actually a Penelope of this situation. To me, he himself gives it away.

Same Anon... same!

I have never thought L was the hang up in this situation. I think N has been burned in love, is pretty closed off with this stuff, and a TOTAL workaholic. L DEFINITELY fell first (no one can convince me otherwise). L also seems to kind of be a hopeless romantic and public lover boy, which I don't think N is use to. But I feel like that is why they kind of balance each other out ❤️️

[lavender-bundle-blithe]

Modern!BSD but...

Atsushi, a criminally underrated fashion designer with his sketches more or less being taken off the internet and reused by the more greedy designers. And his muse, a model and internet sensation, and what seems to be the only outsider that sees through the bulls--t, Akutagawa. The same muse that inspired Atsushi to start designing in the first place. And mutually, the same designer that Akutagawa has followed since the very beginning.

Burnt out and, rightfully, done with the world, Atsushi is left with little to no will of himself. He hasn't been able to sketch outfits nor touched his sewing machine that it could practically collect dust. And while laying on bed, watching his designs being thrown around for what feels like the nth time that week, Atsushi impulsively decided on going on a trip, disabling his account temporarily and taking a step back from media. That impulsive decision landed him back in his hometown, to visit his sister and reunite with his previous roommates and roommates. Meanwhile, Akutagawa finds himself getting dragged along by his sister and her friends to what could be explained as an isolated village. But the insist on visiting for the weekend at the very least. His schedule was free, so they jumped at the opportunity regardless.

And in all honesty, this trip was all that Atsushi needed. To take in the fresh air, see how much (or how little) his hometown has changed, hanging out with friends, and especially the village cats that took a liking to him almost instantly. Maybe the village cats Atsushi remembered as a kid has told its kids about him and it just continued one with its several generations. Coincidentally, that's how he comes face to face with his muse, Atsushi pausing his sketching to pet some cats while Akutagawa peering over his shoulder, at first intently staring at the cats, but then noticing and recognizing the outfit sketches in the sketchbook.

Obviously, that encounter spooked both of them at their personal revelations about the other that Atsushi all but scrambled off back to his current stay, unfortunately leaving behind his sketchbook. And obviously, the companions of both ushered them to talk to each other. So after bumping into each other in the same place, with Akutagawa the one petting the cats, they start talking. And kept talking. If anything, Akutagawa's entire weekend was just him getting to know this faceless designer he has admired for quite a while.

By the end of the weekend and Akutagawa having to catch the train back home, Atsushi catches him in time to give him something; his most recent sketches that was inspired by this trip. Specifically: his time with Akutagawa. His previous sketches, Atsushi has only ever seen Akutagawa through a screen. But meeting him in person, Akutagawa was an entirely unique person. And for Akutagawa, this designer has always been faceless, only showing off their most recent sketches and getting angry over the fact that it was just being taken. And by GOD he's pretty.

It came to no surprise from either party that they developed a crush even as they continued talking and messaging each other. And when Akutagawa was given an invitation to some sort of awards ceremony with a theme, he goes right to Atsushi.

(tbh that was a weak ending on my end =~="" | My brain was slowly but surely failing on me towards the end, but hopefully my vision still went through and I could understand it later when I come back to this)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden should support the UAW

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. That night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

The UAW are on strike against the Big Three automakers. Biden should be roaring his full-throated support for the strike. Doing so would be both just and shrewd. But instead, the White House is waffling…and if recent history is any indication, they might actually come out against the strike.

The Biden administration is a mix of appointees from the party's left Sanders/Warren wing, and the corporatist, "Third Way" wing associated with Clinton and Obama, which has been ascendant since the Reagan years. The neoliberal wing presided over NAFTA, the foreclosure crisis, charter schools and the bailout for the bankers – but not the people. They voted for the war in Iraq, supported NSA mass-surveillance, failed to use their majorities to codify abortion rights, and waved through mega-merger after mega-merger.

By contrast, the left wing of the party has consistently fought monopoly, war, spying, privatized education and elite impunity – but forever in the shadow of the triangulation wing, who hate the left far more than they hate Republicans. But with the Sanders campaign, the party's left became a force that the party could no longer ignore.

That led to the Biden administration's chimeric approach to key personnel. On the one hand, you have key positions being filled by ghouls who cheered on mass foreclosures under Obama:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

And on the other, you have shrewd tacticians who are revolutionizing labor law enforcement in America, delivering real, material benefits for American workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Progressives in the Biden administration have often delivered the goods, but they're all-too-often hamstrung by the corporate cheerleaders the party's right wing secured – think of Lina Khan losing her bid to block the Microsoft/Activision merger thanks to a Biden-appointed, big-money-loving judge:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

These self-immolating own-goals are especially visible when it comes to strikes. The Biden admin intervened to clobber railway workers, who were fighting some of the country's cruelest, most reckless monopolists, whose greed threatens the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

The White House didn't have the power to block the Teamsters threat of an historic strike against UPS, but it publicly sided with UPS bosses, fretting about "the economy" while the workers were trying to win a living wage and air conditioning for the roasting ovens they spend all day in.

Now, with the UAW on strike against the monopolistic auto-makers – who received repeated billions in public funds, gave their top execs massive raises, shipped jobs offshore, and used public money to lobby against transit and decarbonization – Biden is sitting on the sidelines, failing to champion the workers' cause.

Writing in his newsletter, labor reporter Hamilton Nolan makes the case that the White House should – must! – stand behind the autoworkers:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/whose-fault-is-it?

Nolan points out that workers who strike without the support of the government have historically lost their battles. When workers win labor fights, it's typically by first winning political ones, dragging the government to the table to back them. Biden's failure to support workers isn't "neutral" – it's siding with the bosses.

Today, union support is at historic highs not seen in generations. The hot labor summer wasn't a moment, it was a turning point. Backing labor isn't just the moral thing to do, it's also the right political move:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

Biden is already partway there. He rejected the Clinton/Obama position that workers would have to vote for Democrats because "we are your only choice." Maybe he did that out of personal conviction, but it's also no longer politically possible for Democrats to turn out worker votes while screwing over workers.

The faux-populism of the Republicans' Trump wing has killed that strategy. As Naomi Klein writes in her new book Doppelganger, Steve Bannon's tactical genius is to zero in on the areas where Democrats have failed key blocks and offer faux-populist promises to deliver for those voters:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

When Democrats fail to bat for workers, they don't just lose worker votes – they send voters to the Republicans. As Nolan writes, "working people know that the class war is real. They are living it. Make the Democratic Party the party that is theirs! Stop equivocating! Draw a line in the sand and stand on the right side of it and make that your message!"

The GOP and Democrats are "sorting themselves around the issue of inequality, because inequality is the issue that defines our time, and that fuels all the other issues that people perceive as a decline in the quality of their own lives." If the Democrats have a future, they need to be on the right side of that issue.

Biden should have allowed a railroad strike. He should have cheered the Teamsters. He should be on the side of the autoworkers. These aren't "isolated squabbles," they're "critical battles in the larger class war." Every union victory transfers funds from the ruling class to the working class, and erodes the power of the wealthy to corrupt our politics.

When Democrats have held legislative majorities, they've refused to use them to strengthen labor law to address inequality and the corruption it engenders. Striking workers are achieving the gains that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't take for themselves. As Nolan writes:

Democratic politicians should be sending the unions thank you notes when they undertake these hard strikes, because the unions are doing the work that the Democrats have failed to accomplish with legislation for the past half fucking century. Say thank you! Say you support the workers! They are striking because the one party that was responsible for ensuring that the rich didn’t take all the money away from the middle class has thoroughly and completely failed to do so.

Republican's can't win elections by fighting on the class war. Democrats should acknowledge that this is the defining issue of our day and lean into it.

Whose fault is a strike at the railroads, or at UPS, or in Hollywood, or at the auto companies? It is the fault of the greedy fuckers who took all the workers’ money for years and years. It is the fault of the executives and investors and corporate boards that treated the people who do the work like shit. When the workers, at great personal risk, strike to take back a measure of what is theirs, they are the right side. There is no winning the class war without accepting this premise.

Autoworkers' strikes have been rare for a half-century, but in their heyday, they Got Shit Done. Writing in The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells the tale of the 1945/46 GM strike:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

In that strike, the UAW made history: they didn't just demand higher wages for workers, but they also demanded that GM finance these wages with lower profits, not higher prices. This demand was so popular that Harry Truman – hardly a socialist! – stepped in and demanded that GM turn over its books so he could determine whether they could afford to pay a living wage without hiking prices.

Truman released the figures proving that higher wages didn't have to come with higher prices. GM caved. Workers got their raise. Truman touched the "third rail of American capitalism" – co-determination, the idea that workers should have a say in how their employers ran their businesses.

Co-determination is common in other countries – notably Germany – but American capitalists are violently allergic to the idea. The GM strike of 45/6 didn't lead to co-determination, but it did effectively create the American middle-class. The UAW's contract included cost-of-living allowances, wage hikes that tracked gains in national productivity, health care and a defined-benefits pension.

These provisions were quickly replicated in contracts with other automakers, and then across the entire manufacturing sector. Non-union employers were pressured to match them in order to attract talent. The UAW strike of 45/6 set in motion the entire period of postwar prosperity.

As Meyerson points out, today's press coverage of the UAW strike of 2023 is full of hand-wringing about what a work-stoppage will do to the economy. This is short-sighted indeed: when the UAW prevails against the automakers, they will rescue both the economy and the Democratic party from the neo-feudal Gilded Age the country's ultrawealthy are creating around us:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9?sk=207d6afdb89b0351b92233cc3318ab94

There's a name for a political strategy that seeks to win votes by making voters' lives better – it's called "deliverism." It's the one thing the Trump Republican's won't and can't do – they can talk about bringing back jobs or making life better for American workers, but all they can deliver is cruelty to disfavored minorities and tax-breaks for the ultra-rich:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Deliverism is how the Democrats can win the commanding majorities to deliver the major transformations America and the world need to address the climate emergency and dismantle our new oligarchy. Letting the party's right wing dominate turns the Democrats into caffeine-free Republicans.

When the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse – because Joe Manchin insisted that poor people would spend the money on drugs – they killed a program that had done more to lift Americans out of poverty than anything else. Today, American poverty is skyrocketing:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4206837-poverty-made-an-alarming-jump-congress-could-have-stopped-it/

Four million children have fallen back into poverty since the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse. The rate of child poverty in America has doubled over the past year.

The triangulators on the party's right insist that they are the adults in the room, realists who don't let sentiment interfere with good politics. They're lying. You don't get working parents to vote Democrat by letting their children starve.

America's workers can defeat its oligarchs. They did it before. Biden says he's a union man. It's time for him to prove it. He should be on TV every night, pounding a podium and demanding that the Big Three give in to their workers. If he doesn't, he's handing the country to Trump.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

[toldbytendo]

"no more microphones: how misogynoir continues to reveal itself — it’s time for podcast licenses." 🙄

Hey lovelies,

I’m tired and I wanna talk about it…🤦🏾‍♀️

Podcast licenses should most definitely be a thing. Honestly, if this is the kind of content that "free speech" allows, maybe we need to rethink it altogether. Imagine the peace we'd have if people (men) needed approval before being handed a mic—because right now, it seems like anyone (men) with an internet connection and a bad opinion gets a platform. If a little censorship could keep this kind of nonsense rubbish out of our ears, it may be worth it!

Watching the recent controversy unfold with James and Fuhad from Shxts and Gigs has actually really irritated and annoyed me. James and Fuhad’s comments about Black women weren’t just offhand or "jokes." They were rooted in a long-standing pattern of dehumanising, belittling, and degrading Black women in ways that are too familiar to ignore. I saw their apology, if you can even call it that, and I was left wondering—do they really believe they did something wrong, or are they just trying to calm the storm? When Andrew joined in, laughing at their apology on his own platform, it only made it worse. This is the circle we keep going around in. Men laughing at other men for even attempting to apologise for their wrongdoing, while we, Black women, are left sitting with the pain of being torn apart by the same people we would naturally expect to come to our defence.

First and foremost, it’s absolutely nobody’s place besides Black women to tell us how we should feel about this controversy. We were the ones disrespected and degraded, and it is entirely our right to process and cope with that in whatever way we see fit. Whether that means speaking out, stepping back, or holding onto our anger for as long as we need, it’s not up to anyone else—especially not Black men or those defending these actions—to dictate how we react. We are the offended party here, and we deserve the space to feel, grieve, and respond on our own terms.

My initial thoughts were simple: we (Black women) need to stop expecting Black men with microphones, who *very clearly* do not like Black women, to run to our defense. I’ve spent too much time hoping for the men in our community to step up and recognise the harm they perpetuate, but the truth is, many of them simply won’t. They don’t have the emotional maturity, nor the desire, or mental capacity to understand the nuances of what it means to be a Black woman in this world.

But my perspective has since shifted. It’s not just about expecting them to be ‘pro-Black’ or ‘pro-Black women���. That’s too idealistic at this point. It’s about speaking up against blatant racism and disrespect, especially when it’s directed at women in their own community. This isn’t about policing preference. I truly support and encourage anyone, Black men included to love who they love, wholeheartedly. It’s literally not about who you’re attracted to. It’s about the line that gets crossed when Black women are made to feel inferior, unworthy, and less-than in the eyes of Black men who have been indoctrinated with the same anti-Blackness that white supremacy relies on. You can quite literally see it playing out in this situation, Andrew (a known misogynist, racist and white suprematist) is quite literally getting exactly what he hoped out of this situation.

We’re not even talking about accountability anymore. At this point, it’s about survival. We truly deserve better, but I personally can no longer waste my energy demanding something that feels like it's constantly being denied. I feel so defeated. It’s such a debilitating and depressing experience opening social media and seeing your community, Black women, being dragged, laughed at, bullied and degraded online. We’re only human. We keep calling out the harmful rhetoric. We keep showing how deeply it affects us. Yet, there’s always a flood of Black men defending their behavior, telling us we’re “too sensitive” or that “it’s never that serious.” They show up to silence us rather than holding their brothers accountable.

Would it have been “not that serious” if they had spent an entire podcast episode dragging Black men instead? Would Andrew have laughed and mocked an apology if the target wasn’t Black women, but someone who looked like him? There’s no question that they would have had something to say. But when it’s about us?

Crickets. 🦗

I don’t have the energy to argue anymore. We’re in 2024. If Black men haven’t unlearned their internalized racism by now, then they never will. Anti-Blackness runs rampant within our own community, and it breaks my heart. I’ve said all I can, and I know many of you feel the same—tired, heartbroken, and utterly defeated.

The truth is, we don’t need validation from these men, and we don’t need to keep begging for respect. We’ve seen time and time again that some of them just aren’t capable of giving it. But what we do need is to recognise that our hurt is valid, and it’s okay to feel disturbed by what’s happening. It’s okay to be bothered when you see these “apologies” that do nothing but laugh in the face of accountability. It’s okay to disengage, to stop pouring your energy into a well that doesn’t run deep enough to support you.

At times like these, the importance of looking to one another, to other Black women, for a sense of community is more crucial than ever. We need to uplift one another because, as painful as it is, controversies like this reveal some dark realities that come with being a Black woman. But it’s just one part of the experience—it doesn’t define us. Unionising and speaking out when disrespect like this occurs is essential, not just to raise awareness but for ourselves—to make it clear that we see what’s happening and we will not forget. But once we’ve spoken up, we also need to remind ourselves to move on from these moments of disrespect.

This ridiculousness will never define Black womanhood, because only we have the power to define who we are. Black womanhood is not aggression, manipulation, or whatever else they try to paint us as. We know better. It’s a multifaceted, beautiful experience that can never be reduced to the tired, harmful stereotypes these men keep pushing. We don’t need to rely on podcasts hosted by racists, misogynists, and anti-Black clowns to tell us who we are. Our sense of self, our strength, and our beauty is something only we can shape, and we do.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about expecting better from them anymore. It’s about demanding respect for ourselves—whether they give it to us or not. And sometimes, that means stepping back to protect your peace.

Just had to get that off my chest, feeling a lot at the moment. 🫠🥴

[zeeph-containment-zone]

//sa discussion: really not digging the "you can be seen but never heard" mentality the internet has adapted towards depictions of SA, mainly seeing it today in the recent Hazbin Hotel discourse. "Respectful Depictions," according to the web, apparently can ONLY tell the viewer they were assaulted but the minute they show anything, the fetishization fingers start being pointed and the creators are deemed bad people. As an SA victim and someone who writes about their own experience using their characters, this sits terribly with me. I hate how the internet has created this "sunshine and rainbows" effect regarding discussions of sa because sa is the exact opposite of that. It's messy, it's scary, it's uncomfortable. And if YOU, ESPECIALLY if you're someone who's never been, are upset that you are uncomfortable because you saw an SA scene in a movie, TV show, or otherwise, take a moment to think about how people who actually lived through a situation like that feel before writing a twitter rant about how the scary sides of SA shouldn't be explicitly shown in media. It takes a lot of guts for people to come forward and write about their abuse and they don't deserve to be accused of fetishizing their own experience because they weren't afraid to show the world what happened to them. It's also important to show the dark side of SA because you never know who could be living in a similar situation. That stuff being shown as a bad thing actually™ can help a lot of people process things that have happened to them. It also helps dispel the stereotypical depiction of topics like these (aka the "creepy man in a back alley who drags a random woman behind a dumpster" trope.) There's a very distinct bold line that divides fetishization and genuine portrayal and it's ignored by so many people.

That being said you're allowed to be uncomfortable and feel triggered by depictions. That is extremely valid and people should respect that. You can skip the scenes if you need to, there's resources out there that'll tell you exactly what to skip + they're required to list that content contains things like that in the rating description. What ISN'T okay though is assuming the creator had bad intent because you were uncomfortable and for no other reason, and attacking, speaking over or downlplaying SA victims for feeling differently. (also in terms of referencing this to the hazbin hotel drama, yes i've seen the tweet she made about the MV. I really really think she was actually referencing the dancing spider and not the flashbacks, and I agree it's in distaste because she was probably too dense to think about that. And also no, I'm not watching that shit nor have I ever liked it to begin with. I hate it for several other reasons.)

[enbyleighlines]

Miscellaneous Ike/Soren/Ranulf thoughts that have been on my mind recently:

Road trip AU. Ike takes Soren and Ranulf on a road trip. Soren is the backseat driver, ensuring that they don’t get lost. He 100% has planned everything ahead of time, and has physical maps in addition to his phone’s GPS. Yet Ranulf is constantly suggesting detours, to Soren’s frustration. Ike drives most of the time, finding it relaxing. Ranulf is also in charge of the music. They stay in various cheap motels and occasionally squeeze together on one bed. Soren complains the first time that they will break the bed, but between Ike’s plush chest proving to be a self-heating pillow and Ranulf draping his limbs over Soren like a weighted blanket that also purrs, Soren ends up having one of the best nights of sleep of his night.

Another modern AU where Ike, Soren, and Ranulf get trapped inside a vacation home together because there is a big tropical storm and it floods all the roads. Maybe they started vacationing with friends and family, but decided to leave later in the evening, and end up stranded for another couple of days. They lose power and internet access, which forces them to light candles and such. Maybe it happens pre-relationship and it forces them to admit to the fact that Soren and Ranulf both have feelings for Ike. Maybe during a game of truth and dare. Maybe the games they play get a little spicy, and by the time the roads are open again, all three of them have learned a whole lot about themselves and each other.

Food is a love language they all share. Ike will sneak food onto Soren’s plate when no one is looking: especially pastries, which Soren loves but rarely indulges in. Soren will research local restaurants to find new and interesting dishes that Ike might like. Ranulf loves to go out and hunt or catch fish and then cook them up with all of Ike’s favorite spices and side dishes. Further into their relationship, Ranulf will drag Soren to stands selling sweets, and order enough for them to share. And even further into their relationship, Soren will start bringing new recipes to Ranulf and ask him for help so that they can work together to make a meal for Ike.

[sevenmothz]

Honestly, the way people have been talking about Veilguard that actually have been enjoying themselves is exactly how it was when Andromeda dropped.

If you enjoyed Andromeda, you were constantly pre-facing anything positive you had to say about the game with shit like “Well yeah, it has it’s faults it’s not perfect and I acknowledge that” and AAAAAHHHHH. I got sick of that shit back then, and I’m still sick of it now.

If someone comes into your post about being happy with the game you got and tries to drag you down for having a good time, tell them to fuck off. You don’t need to shrink yourself down so other people’s opinions can take up more space than your own, especially when it comes to your own personal spaces on the internet.

And that isn’t fucking toxic positivity or whatever bullshit dumbfucks online want to label you with.

It’s so fucking stupid that people assume those of us having a good time with our games means we have absolutely no criticisms of them just because we make a few gushing posts. I’ve basically made talking trash about the ways Inquisition shit the bed a fucking sport at this point, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to think and say as I play Veilguard more. I mean jfc just look at the posts I made while playing Origins recently. I wasn’t exactly exuding sparkles and sunshine at every turn.

What I ain’t gonna do is kowtow to some precious little fucking babies that can’t handle that other people like something they don’t.

[thornsent]

The internet kind of just sucks when you're autistic and traumatized...

I take these sorts of things kind of weirdly hard. I don't consider mutuals My Bestest Closest Friends or anything but I do often consider em' friends, especially if I recall sharing words with you. and if I can disagree with someone and still have a conversation it makes me quite happy and feel very safe, I feel like I'm learning something useful even if my mind isn't changed. I'd gotten used to being able to safely disagree on people's posts I suppose?

I really try more n more when I disagree with people to be charitable and meet them where they're at because from their point they probably have good reason to feel those things. I think often too when I disagree, I want to share my opinion because sometimes it seems like the person who disagrees is hurting themselves and I don't think they ought to-

if you think there's not a lot of trans people but you're trans, for instance, that makes me sad and I disagree, bc scientifically and logically we're really common and you are not that alone, and as things get better there'll be more and more of us feeling safe to come out and exist.

it seems like a lonely and isolating opinion to have and I'm trying to reach a hand out and say hey, I recognize that but it's not the case! so when I get snapped at for, what from my perspective is trying to reach out to someone and either make them feel better about life or understand their circumstances better, it really stings.

it uh, is triggering, I think. It reminds me of a very frightening person I once dated who would get genuinely irate with me because I tried to comfort him when he was depressed, and then would try and drag me down with him.

I'm mentally and physically disabled, like literally I have a support team n' people who come help me do my chores and take care of myself, and I'm queer in a small red town. I'm an hour away from all my friends minimum and I don't have family aside from my partner. this is, to say, that I'm really lonely and feel quite isolated, even as I try to exist within my community and meet folks in real life. it's not easy.

so a lot, a lot of my interaction since I've moved here has been online. my blog has largely been running on queue and I only check a few times a day typically, but I do really really like interacting with my mutuals. not everyone gets a lot of in-person social interaction, you know? not everyone is so lucky :(

and so when these sorts of things happen, and are this bad and this (mutually) triggering, it just.... really takes the wind out of me and makes me want to cry! it is a rehash of traumas that have occurred repeatedly throughout my life that are at their root because I am traumatized and autistic and I make social mistakes subsequently

and to be further vulnerable adding atop that having ocd (which has been flaring up for me really bad lately, I think due to the seasonal change making all my symptoms Worse--) and also recently having a falling out with my closest friend bc they did some really cruel stuff irl I think made this just Really Get To Me in a way it wouldn't otherwise have.

I am starting ketamine infusion therapy soon enough, so I'm really hoping it'll help with that. Or I'll k-hole. We'll see. I've been burnt out and had little energy lately which means I spend more time on the internet, hopefully infusion therapy will help and I can at least get back to art, if nothing else. Social media has been making me really sad with humanity lately.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic:

Delivering hard truths is Allie Beth Stuckey’s job—a job she was called to do by God. And after a decade, she’s gotten pretty good at it. “Do I love when people think that I’m a hateful person?” Stuckey asked me in an interview in June. “Of course not.” We had been talking about her opposition to gay marriage, but Stuckey opposes many things that most younger Americans probably consider settled issues. “I’ve thought really hard about the things I believe in,” she said, “and I would go up against literally anyone.”

The 32-year-old Texan hosts Relatable With Allie Beth Stuckey, a podcast in which she discusses current events and political developments from her conservative-Christian perspective. Stuckey is neither a celebrity provocateur in the style of her fellow podcast host Candace Owens, nor the kind of soft-spoken trad homemaker who thrives in the Instagram ecosystem of cottagecore and sourdough bread. Stuckey is a different kind of leader in the new counterculture—one who criticizes the prevailing societal mores in a way that she hopes modern American women will find, well, relatable.

The vibe of her show is more Millennial mom than Christian soldier. Stuckey usually sits perched on a soft white couch while she talks, her blond hair in a low ponytail, wearing a pastel-colored sweatshirt and sipping from a pink Stanley cup. But from those plush surroundings issues a stream of stern dogma: In between monologues about the return of low-rise jeans, Stuckey will condemn hormonal birth control—even within marriage—and in vitro fertilization. She has helped push the idea of banning surrogate parenthood from the conservative movement’s fringes to the forefront of Republican politics. Her views align closely with those of Donald Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, and fit comfortably in the same ideological milieu as the Heritage Foundation’s presidential blueprint Project 2025, which recommends, among other things, tighter federal restrictions on abortion and the promotion of biblical marriage between a man and a woman.

I first became aware of Stuckey in 2018, when a low-production satirical video she made about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went semi-viral. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it made a lot of liberals mad, which was, of course, the point. Back then, Stuckey didn’t have a huge fan base. Now she has 1 million followers on her YouTube and Instagram accounts combined. She runs a small media operation of editors and producers—and recently recorded Relatable’s 1,000th episode.

[...]

Stuckey’s is a movement that has felt ascendant in the past few years, especially since the fall of Roe v. Wade, which has emboldened social conservatives like her to seek new territory to conquer. Relatable is a glimpse into that crusade. Stuckey sees herself as a sisterly Sherpa helping Christian women navigate the rough terrain of America’s polarized society. “What she is doing is exactly what Phyllis Schlafly did,” Jonathan Merritt, a religion writer and the author of A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars, told me, referring to the activist who rallied conservative women against abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. “She’s just able to do it with the amplifiers of modern social media and the internet.” Stuckey is resisting what she views as a strong leftward drift in American society. “It’s easy to be a progressive. Everyone’s gonna affirm you and validate you and applaud you,” she told me. “The last thing a woman wants is to be excluded.” Stuckey, however, is comfortable swimming upstream. She wants her followers to be, too.

Conservatives have prescribed many remedies for what ails American culture. Stuckey, for example, would like people to stop having premarital sex, and for drag queens to stop reading stories to children. And right now, what she would really like is an iced honey latte—but only 12 ounces, because it’s already late afternoon. Stuckey had been reluctant to meet me, she said, because I was a journalist from outside the conservative-media universe. But she finally showed up—sans press handler—at a coffee shop in a North Dallas suburb. She wore another long floral dress, and her dark eyebrows were knit in a slightly suspicious frown.

[...]

At the San Antonio conference—the eighth annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit, held by the conservative group Turning Point Action—signs outside the bathrooms read GIRLS ONLY. The current iteration of the conservative-women’s movement is a hot-pink goulash of subcultures: evangelical traditionalism meets crunchy homesteader vibes—with a little MAGA rancor sprinkled in. At the conference, a clinical social worker addressed the crowd about the harms of day care for young children, and so did Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s lawyer, who talked about facing attacks from “fake news” outlets. Speaker after speaker vouched for the advantages of temperature-based ovulation tracking, holistic remedies for pain and depression, and all-natural fertility supplements. The most in-demand piece of merch at the event was a tote bag decorated with cutesy jam jars whose labels read Strawberry Jams But My Glock Don’t.

Attendees in their 20s and early 30s, predominantly wearing sundresses and shiny hair ribbons, told me that they felt judged by their peers for wanting to have babies and be homemakers. Some said they were relieved when Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, assured them in his welcome speech that college “is a waste of time.” Here is where people like Stuckey see an opportunity to promote an alternative—for women to embrace an older idea of womanhood with new verve. This retro brand of womanhood is feminine, not feminist. Stuckey told me that of course she wants women to have equal rights and protection under the law, but the notion that women “need to be liberated” and “go into the workforce,” rather than stay at home and have kids, “has actually led to a lot more misery than freedom.” Her push toward traditional womanhood is an attempt “to reassess some of the girl-boss culture that has permeated even some conservative spaces.” Of course, as a female employer, she is the definition of a girl boss. But this doesn’t strike her as hypocritical. “When I think of a girl boss, I think of this kind of domineering woman who puts her career first, who is independent at all costs, who don’t need no man,” she said.

Women should put family first, as she does with her three young children, Stuckey told me. “Whether you have an Etsy shop, whether you have a crocheting business, whether you have a podcast, or you’re a writer, I don’t think those things are bad,” she said. “But especially in these little years, I just think that they need to come after raising your children.” (When I asked Stuckey who watches her children while she’s in the studio, she declined to offer details but added that her husband is not a stay-at-home dad.)

Women in Stuckey’s DMs are constantly asking her how to advocate for their own socially conservative views. “Everyone knows if you want to learn the best way to win an argument or a debate, it’s by listening to Allie,” Alex Clark, a Turning Point commentator and Stuckey’s friend, told me in an email. “I hear pretty regularly from Millennial women who consider themselves to be newly conservative that they credit Allie for their transformation.” Some recent episodes of Relatable include “Can Christians Say No to Sex Within Marriage?” and “Feminism Is Gender Dysphoria.” Despite the abrasive titles, Stuckey says that she always aims to defend her positions first using a scientific argument, and then to “buttress that with what’s theologically true.” Her critique of gender theory, for example, starts with the fact that most humans possess either XX or XY chromosomes. Then she’ll explain that God makes people in his image—and that God doesn’t make mistakes.

Unlike the many commentators primarily focused on owning the libs, Stuckey has “an integrity, a sincerity,” Amy Binder, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, told me when I asked about Stuckey’s appeal. “There’s a sophistication with Allie, shot through with knowledge about the Bible, and linking it up to the choices women are making today.” Owens, who has had Stuckey on her own podcast, told me that Stuckey is the person “you hope your daughter will grow up to be” because of how well she “embodies the Christian values she espouses.” American culture is saturated with themes that Stuckey finds morally repugnant. She gave up going to Target because of the store’s prominent Pride section, and she lost faith in the fashion brand Anthropologie when it shared a video of a man modeling a woman’s dress. Stuckey enjoys reading the latest in fiction, but Colleen Hoover’s novels are “basically porn,” she told me. And music? “I can’t sit there and listen to Billie Eilish without being like, I’m sad for Billie Eilish,” she said. (The singer recently came out as bisexual.) “The only topic Allie and I may disagree on is Taylor Swift,” Clark told me. “I am a diehard fan.” (One of Stuckey’s latest episodes, “Ex-Psychic Says Taylor Swift Promotes Witchcraft,” explores “occult glorification” in the music industry.)

Stuckey described one audience she hoped to reach as women in the “mushy middle”—tuned-out Christians who see themselves as apolitical. She hopes to bring them into the fold and move them rightward. But she seems at least as devoted to stiffening the spines of women who already agree with her. During her monologues, her tone is blunt and mocking; she rarely laughs, and when she does, it’s usually at the expense of someone on the left.“Her following is looking for someone to help them articulate what they already believe in a concise and compelling way, and she does that,” Merritt said. And the already persuaded keep coming back partly for the scolding. “The meanness of a person like Allie Beth is attractive because it is a catharsis for conservatives.”

[...] Seeking the restoration of traditional gender roles is not new for the conservative movement. But these days, calls to take back womanhood from the feminist left are getting louder—arguably, louder than they’ve been since the late ’70s, when Schlafly helped kill the Equal Rights Amendment. This time around, the network of conservative commentators is sprawling and well financed, thanks to projects like Kirk’s Turning Point Action and Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute. Ahead of November’s election, conservatives hope to use gender and sexuality as a wedge—a way to peel off voters disillusioned with the Democrats. Although the Dobbs decision knocking down Roe two years ago was highly unpopular among American women, it seems to have emboldened social conservatives—forcing them to both reassess their goals and imagine new ones. “Even on gender and abortion,” Stuckey told me, “I think most conservatives are too liberal.” One of those milquetoast conservatives is Donald Trump. Stuckey isn’t exactly a fan of the former president. Like many Christian conservatives, she didn’t appreciate Trump’s criticism of six-week abortion bans, and she thinks the Trump-led changes to the GOP platform on abortion and traditional marriage were “stupid.” Stuckey, who voted for Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2016 and 2024 primaries, gets that Trump turns off many women. Some of her listeners are his supporters, but generally, she said, “my audience is not MAGA.”

Still, like many of her fellow evangelicals, Stuckey is pragmatic. Even if Trump doesn’t represent all of her views on abortion and sexuality, he will surround himself with people who do—people like Vance, for example. The president’s running mate “is definitely more my ‘vibe,’” Stuckey told me in an email after Trump announced his pick. “I like how he talks, how he writes, how he carries himself.”

The Atlantic did a story recently on Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey being the new Phyllis Schlafly, with her culture war crusades against abortion, IVF, birth control, and LGBTQ+ rights being the focus of her Relatable program that airs on the Glenn Beck-owned BlazeTV.

[tellevangeline]

(Photo of me and my husband by @mettieostrowski on insta)

Caroline Polachek as a Sociological Phenomena and why it’s Important to Gatekeep Twinks.

So there I was (picture unrelated) waiting for the train at 10:30 PM on a Sunday so I can go take some extra estradiol from a generous friend at a gay bar, full incognito, wearing a fucking hoodie, I’m so tired I spent all day working on the flier for my new absurdist drag bingo because I and everyone I know are walking parodies of bushwick transexuals.

Train is taking forever so I have some time to kill, and I decide (d? Should I care about continuity? I am not a writer, I’m an author.)

Anyway I decided to put the recent Caroline Polachek album on, which is big for me because I have been a bit of a Caroline Polachek denier. I listened to Chairlift very casually when I was a teenager but I was far from die hard and since then I’ve kind of just thought of her as an unfortunate but all too common case of a talented musician being so aggressively HAIM-Pilled that it’s practically deafening. I say this as a dyke with love for all dykes❤️

Also the “new queen of artpop” claims coming from the exact type of 5’8 naturally dirty blonde he/they’s I’ve made it my life goal to disagree with at all times are really not helping her case for me.

Because here’s my thing. I’m a Kate Bush ride or die, surprising I know. I have I’ve always been a coward tattooed below my collarbones like the only 1% I’ll ever be a part of is her Spotify listeners.

But here’s the tea, if you’re not ready and willing to hee haw like a fucking donkey on a song that’s probably about some form of domestic abuse you just aren’t the new queen of artpop. I do make the rules and to be honest the only people in pop music right now not named lady fucking gaga who has the panache, the gaul, the unwavering commitment to pull stunts and shenanigans on that level are Ethel Cain and Lingua Ignota, especially since FKA Twigs decided she wanted to live a happy and fulfilling life (and good for her, thank you for all the good times queen)

And Caroline is simply not there, she’s too squeaky clean and widely appealing to go to those absurd and ugly places that make a Bjork.

Now my personal cocomelon/surrogate father figure Anthony Fantano the Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd did love her album, and I usually agree with his takes (mbdtf is mid you just love it because it was baby’s first concept album and you have a deep yearning to return to a time in your life where you first realized music could be art) BUT WHILE I AGREE WITH MANY OF HIS TAKES (sorry) my one glaring exception is that he never takes how cunt something is into consideration while evaluating a piece of music, and by that I do mean that he said gaga peaked at fame monster and 212 is the only good azealia banks song. He doesn’t have the tools to engage with music in a fag like manor, so when we’re dealing with music for gays, I don’t trust him.

And then last night I saw a Drag Queen named The Illustrious Pearl perform welcome to my island as a showgirl vampire wearing rhinestoned knee pads and frankly if Caroline is good enough for her she’s certainly good enough for me.

And I’m gonna be really vulnerable here, I really enjoyed the album. Like, there’s about as much art in it’s pop as cranberry in a gay bar vodka cran but it’s damn good pop and the art adds a nice little aftertaste.

I believe is definetely my favorite, those Rhythm Nation/Mortal Kombat ass synth hits always make me convulse (America Has A Problem is my favorite track off Renaissance) (it took me a whole 2 minutes to spell renaissance right) but I also like welcome to my island a lot and I at least liked everything else except for Billions which sounds like a song that was rejected from The Sensual World because Kate would never release a song that non-violent.

But it was cute. I have a meeting with a literal church upstate that is trying to book me for their pride drag show tomorrow and one of them just texted me “Brainstorming with the Holy Spirit is so exciting and so fruitful ✝️💜✝️) and I believe those synth hits on I Believe will carry me through my challenges tomorrow. Love Down.

Xoxo

-Evangeline

[tunneltalkpod]

I've been listening for a few weeks and I'm absolutely hooked to your podcast! do you have any sort of top5 "must listen" episodes that I should maybe check out? (in any criteria: funniest, most informative, etc)

I'm so glad to hear you like it!!!!!! that's amazing!!!!!!

i polled the girls to see what their thoughts were, and all three of us were kind of like "must listen? we don't really understand why anyone listens..."

but here's what we came up with:

Marty, Allie, Anne, and Lea Love Wrestling: Comedian and host of Marty and Sarah Love Wrestling joined the girls for an episode, and it was honestly huge for us. We've loved Marty DeRosa and Sarah Shockey for years, and Marty's skill at the dating game absolutely knocked us into heaven. Sarah Shockey has her own visit with us, and it was also perfect.

Anne remembers Tears Shed, Blood Shed as particularly funny episode, especially the beginning segment where we just discussed our various movie supervision and internet safety as kids.

recently, all three of us listened to our episode immediately following brawl out 1, and how absolutely manically funny we found literally everything about it. we had no concept that this would drag on FOR ANOTHER YEAR. i don't know why it's SO enthralling to listen to us just giggling about the scrum, but it is. those sweet children have no idea they're going to enter a Year of Anxiety and Annoyance.

that's literally all we could brainstorm. Listeners, would you add anything to this list? Are there any particular episodes you think are standouts? Although, as Anne said, beware if you're looking for informative episodes, as our podcast will somehow leave you feeling less informed.

[acespeon]

friendly reminder to new Persona 4 players from an old hat that the original P4 was developed in 2008. that’s a short fifteen years, and nothing was progressive back then. if you’re looking for the progressive stances on Kanji and Naoto that you might see in fandom, the game isn’t like that.

Japan itself wasn’t inherently homophobic like many western societies are but they also aren’t the golden country of LGBT rights. Heck Tokyo Pride has only been in since 2012.

But a small rural town like Inaba is in the game would be quite insulated from the rest of the country, especially back then. The Investigation Team only have flip phones and probably dial up internet.

Yosuke has moved there from Tokyo because his father took up Junes management and, while already an outcast due to Junes causing most of the family run businesses to close, he also likely has internalised a lot of comments and homophobia. Back in 2008 it was popular among teenagers to use gay as an insult to mean something like ‘that’s so stupid’ (heck when I was in high school back in 1997 that was popular). While he does get better as the game progresses forward he still has his moments, but noticeably after the cultural festival has dialed down his homophobic type comments to Kanji since being put through the drag show. Yu, coming from the same city as Yosuke six months later, probably has more of a grasp on things and doesn’t have that internalised hatred for himself like Yosuke has.

Teenagers in small rural towns don’t generally have a grasp on things that what would be considered today to be LGBTQ. If they do it’s because they got it from the internet and as we all know the internet isn’t that great a source, especially if the people you’re learning from are the wrong side of homophobic and use terms that you don’t understand. People back then would use terms like ‘strange’, ‘weird’ or ‘unusual’ to describe LGBT-leaning people, and even now I need to step on my mother’s foot when she uses ‘weird’ or ‘queer’ as a derogatory term.

Even Hanako gets the short end of the stick, not because she’s LGBT or anything (as far as we know), but because she is fat. Asian countries are notoriously fatphobic and I see comments on a mukbanger I watch where she’s like ‘I’ve put on weight :(‘ but she looks exactly the same as when I started watching her three years ago. It might be a thing that I don’t understand because I’m from the western countries but having faced fatphobic comments in my whole life, I take personal offence of Hanako’s portrayal and voice.

Anyway all this to say, don’t be surprised if the game doesn’t pander to your expectations of what Kanji and Naoto should be in your eyes compared to what they are in game. Take recent history into consideration when you play and don’t blame the developers.

[mariacallous]

As the United States was watching the skies in the aftermath of the spy balloon incident, China may have been acting at sea. In early February, maritime vessels disabled the two undersea cables connecting Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, a tiny archipelago just 10 nautical miles off China’s coast, to the internet. Now residents of the islands face highly reduced internet connectivity until the cables are repaired. The activity looks like targeted harassment by Beijing—or an exercise in preparation for cutting off the whole of Taiwan.

On Feb. 2, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing close to the Matsu Islands severed one of the two cables, which connect the islands with Taiwan proper. Then, six days later, a Chinese freighter cut the second cable. Speaking shortly after the second cable was cut, Wong Po-tsung, the vice chair of Taiwan’s National Communications Commission, told reporters that there was no indication the incidents were intentional. It’s not uncommon for undersea cables to be damaged—but losing two in a row is either really unfortunate or quite possibly not a coincidence. Either way, Matsu Islands residents are now left with only rudimentary internet access: The islands’ commercial telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), has set up free, round-the-clock Wi-Fi in its stores on the islands and launched a backup microwave system for phone calls and state communications.

The Matsu Islands’ 12,700 or so residents will have to live without the cables for many more weeks; a repair vessel will arrive on April 20 at the earliest, and the repairs will require further time. The residents have experience living with damaged undersea cables. CHT reports that the cables were damaged five times in 2021 and four times last year, though nowhere near as badly as this time. During such periods of impaired internet connectivity, “it would take more than 10 minutes to send a text message, and sending a picture would take even longer,” Lii Wen, the Matsu Islands head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told the Taipei Times, adding that “the booking system in hostels and logistics services cannot function normally either, let alone viewing content and films on social media.”

With both cables down, even moderately slowed-down internet immobilizes daily life. Beijing is watching to see how island residents get on with this impediment to their existence—and to see how they manage to communicate with Taiwan proper. It’s also keeping close military watch of what it considers a renegade region. Taiwan’s offshore islands have always been its Achilles’s heel; in 1958, China shelled the Matsu Islands and the neighboring island of Kinmen. Last summer, the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted large exercises near the island, purportedly in response to then-U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, though their large and well-executed nature suggested they had been planned long in advance.

Indeed, it’s striking how often Chinese vessels have damaged the undersea cables connecting islands in recent years. It’s especially striking because it’s no mystery where the world’s 380 undersea cables are located. On the contrary, there are maps detailing their location to ensure that fishing vessels don’t accidentally harm them while dragging their nets. By and large, this works: The International Cable Protection Committee reports that each year there are between 100 and 200 cases of damage to the cables and only 50-100 of those incidents involve fishing vessels; the rest are the result of construction and other activity. The incidents involving damage to the cables connecting the Matsu Islands are, in other words, disproportionately frequent.

What’s more, to date they have primarily involved the Chinese excavators that park themselves off the islands and dig up sand (which I wrote about for Foreign Policy last year). Given that undersea cables have a diameter of 17-21 millimeters (roughly the size of a garden hose), it would require an unbelievable amount of bad luck to accidentally damage them as often as Chinese vessels do—let alone to take out two in a row.

Chinese excavators parking themselves in Taiwanese waters and taking Taiwanese sand are classic gray-zone aggression: It’s not a military attack, but it’s also not nothing. Indeed, every time they appear, Taiwanese coast guard vessels have to travel to the site and instruct the vessels to leave (though they can’t be sure the uninvited visitors will do so in an expeditious manner). Every time, the diggers harm the maritime wildlife and the seabed. And because they often harm the undersea cables in the process, they harm the Matsu Islands’ ability to function and to communicate with Taiwan proper and the wider world.

Given that the undersea cables’ locations are known, this frequent and now jacked-up harm to the Matsu Islands doesn’t look like accidental damage—it looks like harassment of Taiwan. After the most recent incident, the DPP accused China of deliberately damaging the cables given how often they’re broken. The incidents could even be an exercise in preparation for a communications cutoff of Taiwan proper. Fifteen undersea cables connect the main island with global telecommunications.

CHT plans to, at least partly, ensure the Matsu Islands’ connectivity by laying another cable, and this time it will be buried underneath the seabed. The cable will, however, only be in place in 2025. In the meantime, CHT has to pay for the backup internet system, and it’s also waiving island residents’ internet fees. When the repair ship arrives, fixing the two cables will cost CHT between $660,000 and $1.3 million.

Causing such costs is also part of gray-zone aggression. If a company suffers losses as a result of geopolitical aggression, its insurer may not cover it: Russia’s devastating NotPetya cyberattack resulted in massive lawsuits between multinationals and their insurers. While CHT’s conversations with its underwriter are naturally confidential, the two will have to agree on whether the severing of the cables was accidental damage or an act of harm initiated by another government to weaken Taiwan. Either way, CHT or its insurer has to pay for repeated damage that goes far beyond what’s typical for undersea cables. What happens if CHT backs out of providing connectivity to the Matsu Islands on the grounds that constant cable repairs are making it too difficult and expensive? As I’ve outlined in other pieces and this report, geopolitical confrontation risks making parts of global business uninsurable.

And there’s another problem facing CHT, Taiwan, and indeed every country: the shortage of cable ships. The reason CHT has to wait until the end of April, or later, for repairs to begin is that there are only 60 cable vessels around. (Take a look at them here.) It’s a good thing that these scruffy-looking ships exist; indeed, without them the internet would not operate. But not only are the cable ships few in number—they’re also getting on in years. As Dan Swinhoe reports for DCD Magazine, no new cable ships were delivered between 2004 and 2010, and only five ships were delivered between 2011 and 2020. “Only eight of those 60 ships are younger than 18, with most between 20 and 30 years old. 19 are over 30 years old, and one is over 50,” Swinhoe notes. Like the world’s undersea cables, the cable ships are privately owned—and the market, as of yet, seems to have no interest in improving things. This might be a chance for governments—especially the world’s predominant naval powers, such as the United States—to step in. Alternatively, cable operators, which include not just telecommunications firms but tech giants like Google, too, might want to buy their own cable ships.

In the future, more submarine cables will be placed underneath the seabed to make them less exposed to damage—but that, too, depends on the 60 cable ships being available. If Chinese fishing and cargo vessels want to accidentally damage or sever the 15 undersea cables connecting Taiwan to the rest of the world, the near future thus offers enticing prospects. Indeed, given the world’s dependence on the cables and the few ships that can service them, the near future offers tempting prospects for any country ready to create a few more “accidents” at sea.

Cable sabotage could become our era’s blockade—and unlike past generations’ blockades, it can be conducted on the sly. No wonder other telecom operators are studying CHT’s backup operations, because they, too, could be forced to deploy such measures, in Taiwan and beyond. And let’s hope many countries study Taiwan’s response. Responding to a devastating but invisible blockade could become one of the thorniest diplomatic challenges facing Western governments.

[ink-flavored]

💘💙 💞

thank you!!

💘 List 3 traits you admire in one of your OCs (preferably ones that you’d like to emulate in your own life).

Okay, I know Pride is a demon and a murderer and literally sided with Lucifer and makes people hate each other for fun, but he DOES have good qualities. Sometimes.

In the process of his development, Pride has ended up having a lot of traits I wish I had. The very sin he's named for is where a lot of it comes from, funnily enough. He doesn't give a fuck about laws or conventions, breaking rules out of spite and not caring what other people think. He is whatever the exact opposite of a perfectionist is, doing the bare minimum and going "I'm the best and I deserve a medal" -- which isn't always a good thing, but man I wish I had the capacity to do that a lot more often. And even though a lot of the time he is defending himself from things that are not attacks, Pride fights back when he's feels like he's been wronged, unabashedly and without guilt-- I am slowly learning to do this but whew!

💙 Which of your OCs would be your best friend (if they were to exist in real life)? Which would be your worst enemy?

I want to be best friends with Hayden because he has 5 baby dragons and that sounds like my dream life. I would absolutely pet-sit those babies, literally whenever. Plus, he's a nice guy, he's cheerful in spite of adversity, and is generally fun to be around.

I don't know if I'd say "worst enemy" but Park does not want to talk about anything other than baseball and I really. really. do not like sports. Sorry dude.

💞 List 3 tropes that you feature in your WIPs and explain why they’re important to you as a person.

Opposites Attract/Unlikely Friends

I only noticed this one recently, but I really enjoy writing characters that, by all rights, should not like each other, but are actually in love and/or best friends. I just think this trope is fun to write tbh! Concocting two people who shouldn't get along and then having to analyze their characters enough to find something they connect on, and build their relationship out from that one thing, and they change each other's perspective on thew way... it is so so enriching for me. I love it.

2. Redemption/People Can Change

This one is really important to me, and it's always done on purpose. I believe that people can change for the better (or worse, but usually I'm writing it "for better"), no matter how many bad things they've done. Sure, it doesn't erase the harm they might have caused, but anyone can realize their behavior is hurting people and stop doing it. And they can be a good person. I think it's really important to tell those stories, especially in such a polarizing time and the rise of internet "if you've done anything bad ever in your life we are allowed to drag you through the mud for it" culture.

3. Monster/"Evil" Creature Getting Soft Unconditional Love

Being told over and over that you are wrong, monstrous, ugly, disgusting, etc. until you start believing it, then one day someone comes along and goes No, Actually, I Love All Of You, No Exceptions? Gets me every time.

BONUS TROPE: Oblivious Mutual Pining

I write this a lot and it is because I think it's funny. And also because there are a lot of times in life that we (proverbial "we") assume that the people in our lives couldn't possibly like and/or love us the same way we do, so we corral our feelings so we don't come across as "too much" or desperate for attention, or whathaveyou. But like... the world would be a much happier, brighter place, full of a lot more love and a lot less misunderstanding if people were simply honest with each other. And seeing the two idiots get together and love each other honestly is, I think, a genuine reflection of that.

We can laugh at "haha the idiots love each other but can't tell even when it's so obvious" but there's a reason it resonates with so many people. It's yearning for something we wish we were brave enough to do.

[send me an "up close and personal" ask]