#when like no ur still stating subjective opinions with no arguments to back them up

[teenagefeeling]

if i see that post with a bunch of tags being like "these are the correct opinions on tumblr discourse" and the first one is "men aren't animals" ONE MORE FUCKING TIME im going to murder someone i swear to god

[akutasoda]

hii i love ur blog and the way u write !!

i want to request bsd boys meeting your family and what would be their reaction whit whoever u want pls just add Jouno he needs more hcs !!

feel free to ignore <33

new families

synopsis - they meet your family

includes - ranpo, chuuya, jouno

warnings - gn!reader, fluff, slight angst - mentions of insecurity, wc - 557

a/n: uee thank you so much!

ranpo edogawa ★↷

↪ranpo knew that you'd want him to meet your family eventually, he practically jumped at introducing fukuzawa to you if you didn't work at the agemcy. and as the worlds greatest detective he was confident they would love him!

↪so why was he so nervous? now that he was meeting your family he would start crumbling under the confident facade your family saw. he realised it was because he wanted tomake a good impression as a small part of him was convinced they wouldn't like him.

↪and if they didn't like him it didn't really matter but he really wanted them to like him. one simple dejection from your parents would completely knock him. however you noticed how nervous he secretly was and kept reassuring him they would love him.

↪and once he did have that confirmation that they did indeed love him, he gained all his confidence back and returned to his self-confident state.

chuuya nakahara ★↷

↪he is an absolute traditional romantic and i take no arguments. he's a gentleman and probably would be the one to first bring up meeting with your parents - mainly so he can prepare himself.

↪again, wants to make a very good first impression. your family may disapprove of his line of work if they ever found out so he wants to be in their good books from the first meeting - especially if you family means alot to you.

↪he would have some jitters but very quickly would get over them and soon enough he would be getting on extremely well with your family. eventually anyone could be convinced he was always apart of your family.

↪your family would probably never guess that the absolute gentleman that was your lover would be apart of the mafia - it would probably be best if they never found out.

saigiku jouno ★↷

↪a rather fearless and sadistic hunting dog who is rendered absolutely terrified at the prospect of meeting your family. he probably isn't really a sentimental type and so family doesn't matter that much to him, he doesn't really understand why you want him to meet them.

↪originally he thought he wouldn't care but the more he thought about, the more he worried they wouldn't like him. he didn't know why but the idea of your family disapproving of him really got to him and so he became determined to make a good impression.

↪you didn't comment on his new motivation to make a good impression, nor the fact that he was slightly awkward at first when he finally met your family. he didn't speak much at first and looked really disinterested but inside he was shaking.

↪your family would express how interesting it was that you found a hunting dog to be your lover and that subject would be his start to building back up his confidence. eventually he would go back to his normal persona but your family couldn't really tell the difference.

↪ he'd still be a bit shaky afterwards and would insist that you didn't see him likd that. if you ever wanted him to meet them again you'd have to tell him over and over how they loved him and that there would be no way that their opinion would get in the way of yours.

[pumpkinpaix]

this is gonna sound so harsh but im legit tired of chinese diaspora people who think that bc they are of chinese descent and they have pleco they can act like voices of authority in the fandom. if modao is the 1st chinese book you have read pieces of with a dictionary, if you have never interacted with the actual chinese fandom, you are not part of the intended audience and your biased opinion is not the One And Only Valid Truth 🍵

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree | this is really hard for me to express in terms of an agree/disagree axis lol

genuinely cannot tell if you’re trying to shade me here anon lmao 😂

this got long and rambly (of course) asldkjfslj. i would love to make the excuse that it’s bc i’ve got a migraine and had No Sleep but. let’s be real i’m always like this.

ok i’ll start with where i agree: i don’t think anyone has the right to act like an ultimate voice of authority in fandom. i think different people with different backgrounds have varying realms of expertise and they should be respected when they share that knowledge, but that the instant someone starts to use that kind of power as a weapon against people they personally don’t like, i think they forfeit that privilege. no one has the one and only valid truth about a piece of media because that’s fundamentally impossible. i have definitely interacted with diaspo who behave like their heritage gives them some kind of incontrovertible authority over everyone else, and they’re fucking insufferable and often rather cruel, even/especially towards other diaspo. meet me in the denny’s parking lot and fight me for real. i’ll kick ur ass. >:c

however, I also think it’s true that there’s a lot of dismissal of heritage fans in this fandom, if that makes sense, from both sides of the equation: non-Chinese fans ignore our cultural hangups because they’re inconvenient, and non-diaspora disdain us for being not Chinese enough. that puts a lot of us in a position of feeling disrespected just for being who we are, or having our very real knowledge and unique experience as individuals devalued because of it.

regardless of my identity, I have formally studied a lot of things: literary translation, media analysis, the politics of oppression, film critique, religious studies, philosophy, four foreign languages etc. and that is all knowledge that I had to work for, and work hard for. I do have a certain measure of authority on all of these subjects over a layperson (to varying degrees), and there are going to be times when i will be more correct than someone who disagrees with me -- but I’ve also absolutely experienced people talking over that specialized knowledge because of who I am, which is, to be clear. extremely infuriating and hurtful. like, i have cried so much about it in the last 18 months. people see my racial and cultural identity before they see anything else, which is understandable to a degree, but upsetting when it becomes the basis for how my work is judged, whether positive or negative. i don’t want you to trust me blindly because i’m abc. I want to you to trust me because you have examined my work critically and judged it to be trustworthy!

so i guess this is getting into the strongly disagree part of the answer: i’ve been speaking a lot with other diaspora fans lately, and it’s been simultaneously hugely relieving and also really saddening. relieving because oh thank god someone else Gets It, and saddening because pretty much all of us, no matter what kind of diaspo we are (north american, european, SEA, taiwanese etc), we’ve all experienced a lot of pressure in this fandom, from non-Chinese, Chinese, and other diaspora fans alike. we’re all acutely aware that we are not modao’s intended audience because being diaspora vs being “from the mainland” or whatever, are actually quite different things, but modao still feels close to home. even if it was not written FOR us it is still familiar to us.

and, because so many of us are multilingual and multicultural, we end up being the bridge between the “actual” chinese fandom and the english-speaking fandom, which is largely made up of non-chinese. (sidenote: I hate it when people say things about being “actually” any identity because it’s almost always for the exact reason you brought up: to use heritage as street cred. it’s like damn, being “actually” chinese doesn’t make ur opinions any less rank. sure you might be “actually” chinese, but do you have basic reading comprehension and literary criticism skills? no? ok then sit your ass back down) many of us are most comfortable in english! so we produce our content in english! but we also DO often have a somewhat privileged access to the culture that underlies mdzs and can explain it in a language that other non-Chinese fans can understand. so it’s not surprising that people flock to us for answers to their cultural questions. and like. if we think we know the answer, it’s natural for us to try and help. this is fandom! we’re here to have fun and find community! and it is definitely a little bit nice to have my culture treated as something desirable for once instead of just like. a weird exotic curiosity that no one really cares too deeply about. and, since a lot of us are able to do things that non-Chinese fans can’t (research in chinese, for example. ask family members for help and more information etc.) we end up just having more information to share.

I think this sometimes results in a tendency for fandom at large to put heritage/diaspo fans on pedestals and tout them as authorities (or use our conflicting viewpoints as ammunition in fandom drama) when the diaspo in question have repeatedly stated that they should not be taken as authorities on something -- and then, once you reach critical mass, your reputation starts to precede you, and I think there’s a lot of misconceptions of how a lot of diaspo act in this fandom simply because of that phenomenon. most of us know that we’re not ultimate arbiters of some kind of cultural gateway, and it can be very tiring both to be treated as such when we insist we are not, and then punished by other people who assume that we acted like we were.

i don’t think there’s a benefit in trying to keep en fandom and cn fandom totally separate, and I also think it’s unfair to consider the cn fandom the “real” fandom. i think that way lies deeper misunderstandings, gatekeeping, etc. i think we can definitely acknowledge the differences between them, but i think trying to make meaningful connections between fandom circles is really valuable! i don’t think i’ve ever made it a secret that modao is my first cmedia fandom? so it’s also the first time i’ve had reason to interact with chinese fandom, which has been super enlightening and interesting! i’ve made some super cool friends and learned a lot about how fandom works in china, how it’s similar and how it differs from the fandom i’m familiar with.

and then, kind of circling back around, there’s also a bit of a sense like, okay, so if diaspo don’t belong in the CN fandom, but we can’t talk about our own culture with some degree of confidence in EN fandom, then like..... where do we go...? if we see EN fandom doing something that contradicts our cultural knowledge, do we just. not say anything? do we not count unless we’ve already ingratiated ourselves to CN fandom? that’s probably where the core of my strong disagreement comes from, because criticism of diaspora fans as like, acting above their station so to speak, feels just like a tired continuation of the same shit we’ve had to deal with for our whole lives, being told we’re not good enough for anywhere and that we should just be quiet and keep our heads down and get over it. that our opinions, despite coming from a unique perspective with a unique relationship to the subject in question, are less valid or real than “actual” chinese people, you know? and sometimes i see that and im like lmfao just sneer at me for being jook-sing and leave then if you’re so eager to think of me as lesser.

so yeah, basically im of a few minds: true! diaspora fans don’t get to throw their weight around just because they’re diaspo. they don’t get carte blanche to act like bullies or try to shape the fandom to their own personal liking and crusade against people who disagree with them. they don’t get to pretend their heritage makes them superior to everyone else, and i think western diaspora especially need to be careful when asserting any kind of moral lens over the text to acknowledge that we have our own biases to interrogate. i am not immune.meme etc. on the other hand, this vein of criticism tends to put all diaspo in a bit of a double-bind, and also, however unintentionally, plays into the general, continuous trend of dismissing diaspora for being diaspora, and i’m really not about that. i don’t think that’s the motivation behind opinions like this, but i do think that when the basis for the argument hinges on the idea that diaspora are not “real” chinese, no matter how much I too have beef with certain diaspora fans, the argument needs to be revisited. 

(ko-fi)

🍵 ((un)popular) opinions meme

[intersexalastor]

Okay so can u explain wats wrong with the post?? Like spell it out for us

Sure.

Before I really start, I want to point out that I'm NOT taking a "pro-fanfic" stance, because I genuinely (GENUINELY) do not give a flying FUCK about this topic. It just drives me up a a wall to see people mindlessly consume and parrot back faulty arguments as if they're gold. Also letting that shit continue is extremely dangerous, especially now when there's so much anti-science, anti-academia, and misinformation being spread which has lead to radicalizing people in extreme beliefs (particularly right-wing groups). Just because aa bad argument or false evidence align with your opinion, does not mean that you should use them.

So, really, there's two related issues with this post. I'll try to explain this as clearly as I can, so it might get longer than I'd like, but whatever lol. I'll start with what I consider to be the more minor of the two.

First is the use of the word "better" here. It's too vague. According to the OP, they've seen "people" say something like "fanfics are better than actual books."

Well, we can split the use of "better" into two very general categories: subjective and objective. Without any context, we can't really tell which of these categories these "people" were using better in.

If it's subjective (i.e. "I like fics more than books"), then this post was useless from the get-go. People can say they like shitty movies over critically acclaimed ones; people like what they like, humans are weird, yadda yadda yadda. There are plenty of people who don't like reading at all, that doesn't mean they think that literature is unimportant.

But even if it's objective, it still doesn't tell us what these "people" are actually saying (because, again, the wording is too vague.) Better how? In plot/characters, in prose, in availability/access, in engagement? We don't know.

This leads into the second problem (which is a huge red flag) which I brushed on above: OP is leaping through hoops and making claims that, according to this post, have no basis.

OP's conclusion "u think ur niche fanfics that only u and people in ur fandom know about are more impactful than say maya angelou or langston hughes or hell even the mf that made the goosebumps books lmao" is based on people, who we don't know, saying "fanfics are better than actual books." These are not equivalent statements. You cannot derive that conclusion solely from the observation OP has provided. In fact, OP specifically states that people saying they think fanfic is better than books "tells [them]" this conclusion. It does not.

To simplify it, we'll say the statement "fanfic is better than books" is statement A. While the conclusion OP came to "fics are more impactful than books" is statement B.

We'll use a different subject to illustrate how statement A does not provide sufficient evidence to conclude with statement B.

Maybe you know a lot about pokemon, maybe you don't, but even if you don't most people still know about it. A good chunk of those same people would also be able to recognize pikachu on some level. For good reason: pikachu has pretty much been the face of pokemon for over twenty years.

The statement (A) "Gengar is (objectively) better than Pikachu" is, as we've discussed, vague as fuck. Better how? Stronger? Is a better fit for the average team (in the games)?

Statement B would be something like "Gengar has had a stronger influence/bigger impact than Pikachu on the pokemon franchise."

Statement A does NOT reasonably lead us to the conclusion of statement B.

Of course, the person saying statement A could ALSO believe in statement B. BUT, that's not the point. The point is that you cannot conclude statement B is something they believe based solely on statement A.

[lhmoonbin]

HELL O FRIENDS !!! IM SO EXCITED THIS IS FINALLY OPENING WOWOWOW Ok so hey hehe my name is fox (she/her), i’m 21 and in the gmt-3 timezone (so it’s likely i’ll be on here when most of you are asleep.... rip) and this is my baby seok moonbin!!! for starters, i’ll already tell you that he’s a very broke 23-year-old artsy boy who just wants to live his own life lmaooo you can find his detailed background and everything HERE, and his stats HERE, while under the cut i’ll basically sum everything up if you’re also like me and have the attention span of a fruit fly :> anygay i’ll also leave some possible connections here and !! that’s it?? HFJDSHFS pls like this if you want to plot and i’ll slide in ur dms k thx BYE

tw: mentions of underage alcohol and drug use, violence, anxiety/depression

background !!

moonbin was born in may 16th 2003 in busan so he’s 23 and a taurus baby <3

his birth was long awaited by his parents since they had been trying for a while, and a year after he was born they also had another boy

they moved to seoul when the two were still kids bc of his father being promoted

moony’s brother, jaesung, was always his best friend. they did everything together, played together, went to school together (their mom even sent them into school at the same time for their sake, so moonbin got into school 1 year late)

still, they had their differences, what with likes and dislikes, mostly bc jaesung was always more studious and straight to the point when moonbin was more imaginative, creative, easily distracted and loved everything that had to do with art

their parents disapproved of moonbin’s choices, since they wanted both of their sons to get jobs that could take them all kinds of places

everything stayed pretty much the same until they got into high school, where they were finally separated into different classrooms and jaesung’s behavior started changing bc of the people he started hanging out with, what one would call “the wrong crowd”; alcohol, drugs and too late night outs became something normal to him

it was pretty obvious that moonbin was left behind by his own brother, and he had to find his own friends, which were much more inviting towards him

jaesung started acting cold to moonbin even at their own home, and it didn’t stop there. as their high school years passed by, moonbin graduated and had to start working right away to be able to save enough money for college; his parents had way too much on their shoulders, since jaesung was suffering from anxiety and depression and had no intention of fixing that, only digging himsel deeper into the mess he was in and getting held back a few years in school

eventually, jaesung got so lost within himself that he ended up getting locked up after attacking both a random guy at a party and the officer who came over to separate them, and in his drunken state only made things worse for himself. that assured him more than ten years in prison, with a fee high enough to make his parents unsure if it was really possible to get him out

this happened when moonbin had just been accepted into college, and while the natural thing for him would be to just stay and help his parents out during such tough times, moonbin got easily affected by his friends and other people’s comments all the time, about his brother and how jaesung was in jail and simply associating moonbin to the person his brother was. it seemed so much easier to just go away and pretend like the life he lived up until he got into college didn’t exist, so that’s exactly what he did

if you ask him, moonbin will either deny he actually has a brother or disgard the family topic as a whole; he likes to think he’s detached himself from the reality he used to live in, so dependent of someone who so easily forgot about him

personality + extras !!

moonbin has always been very cheery and friendly, but before it was in a way more muted way than nowadays, since he doesn’t feel like he depends on anyone else to be around a crowd of people anymore

he always tries to make friends w everyone and likes to feel included when people remember him and such :>

at a party, moonbin is the kind of friend that everyone thinks is drunk when in reality he’s the only sober one lmao he rly only likes wine,, sometimes

moonbin is REALLY sensitive when it comes to things that dont concern his own personal emotions only. like for example.. he might cry during an argument about food or during any kind of movie lol maybe even in the middle of singing songs

very imaginative, often times has his head up in the clouds lmao also can be caught anywhere sketching in his little trusty journal, but he prefers painting over drawing anyway

another place he’s seen in is etude house, where he part-times and despite popular opinion, he actually thinks the pink uniform fits him quite well

ALSO he busks sometimes wherever ppl will have him !! he’s quite confident in his singing voice as well as his drawing/painting skills so thankfully he can also make a little bit of money from that (if u havent noticed, he’s broke)

PLS LOVE HIM HES MY BABY

wanted connections !!

ppl that study with him, study partners, someone that is tutoring him with a subject he cant quite focus in?? he’s not that studious lmao

a best friend??? someone who understands him and is able to crack him easily? he’s not very open to others about emotions and such, so it’d be nice to have that

he’s from seoul, so .. people who knew him back then? so like. high school friends, exes, enemies, all of that good shit

one sided crushes?? from him or on him, doesnt matter. maybe ur muse keeps visiting etude house only to swoon over moonbin dressed in pink.,, or he justs looks up to your muse and calls it a crush even if he knows it’s probably nothing too much

some deeper platonic relationships...

hook ups!! friends w benefits !!! all the romantic plots!!!

someone pls pls PLS give this boy a muse !!!!! doesn’t even have to be romantic but just like. maybe he saw your muse around one day and thought ‘OH shit wtf whos that person who’s suddenly given me an inspiration boost’ and proceeds to want to draw them at all times.. maybe even asks them to paint / draw them in person <3 could lead to more or not

idk maybe some enemies?? or ppl who dont like him? he doesnt rly drink or do any kinds of drugs (he’s traumatized by his brother) so idk maybe ur muse is rly into that stuff and got into an argument w moonbin about how he should live a little??? and moonbin got mad?? idk lmao

someone who’s seen moonbin busking a few times and just cant get enough of his voice.. his first “fan” :)

overall, just give my baby some friends pls <3

[mellometal]

I know I said I don't associate myself with the Panic! fandom anymore, but this is something I have been ACHING to talk about. This is some bad timing, since it was Brent Wilson's birthday recently (yes, his birthday is July 20th, NOT August 20th; source: I've been following him on Twitter for five years and he's actually said this), but this is going to be about Brent and the whole situation with him.

Warning: What I'm about to say about the situation with Brent Wilson (original bassist) is heavily biased, since I do stan him. YEAH. I STAN BRENT MATTHEW WILSON, THE ORIGINAL BASSIST OF PANIC! AT THE DISCO. CRY ABOUT IT. STAY MAD. He's one of the ONLY members of Panic! At The Disco (past and present) who I give a fuck about, besides Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, and Ian Crawford.

Trigger warning: This will be talking about arrest, jail, drugs (doing and selling), weapons (guns), childbirth, parenthood, and some other things. If these things are triggering for you or make you uncomfortable in any way, you do not have to read this post. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

Disclaimer: I don't know Brent in real life, I'm not in his circle of friends or people he's closest to (like his wife Taylor, his parents, his brother Blake, his in-laws, his irl friends, coworkers, etc.), and this is not me acting like I do. I don't know what his life is like outside of Twitter. The only contact I've ever had with him has been on Twitter, but it was pretty limited.

My thoughts on this situation are MY opinion, any possibilities in my thoughts are just theories and not proven to be true, and I'm not trying to excuse whatever he was allegedly charged with.

Just for the record, I am willing to have a civil conversation with anyone who hates Brent. The minute you attack me or anyone else who likes Brent, or a whole bunch of you start circle jerking about how much you hate him, you're getting blocked. If all you're going to bring up is the shit Brent did when he was in his late teens instead of adding anything useful to the discussion, you're getting blocked too. I already know about that. It happened back in 2004-2006. They were all still kids, to a point. Brent has changed quite a bit since then. The whole "Hate on Brent Wilson" bandwagon is stupid, toxic, and I refuse to jump on it. I've never jumped on it when I was in the Panic! fandom, so why would I do it now?

Remember, without Brent bringing Br3nd0n Ur!3 into Panic!, your precious Br3nd0n wouldn't be successful today. JUST SO YA KNOW. (I'm very salty right now, if you can't already tell.)

If you would like to know about what happened with Brent, a few months ago, he was arrested on (alleged) drug charges and illegal possession of a weapon, along with a traffic violation and something to do with a probation violation too. He was set to go to court back in March for his sentencing, but that's the most recent information I've found. I don't know what the fuck is going on at this point. I don't know if he's been sentenced, if he's doing anything alternative like rehabilitation, nothing. (The reason why I said they're alleged charges is because I don't know if he's even been to court for sentencing or anything like that.)

People's reactions were mixed. Some actually LAUGHED and made a whole bunch of jokes about him being arrested (that's fucking insensitive and cruel). Some felt bad for Brent because he just became a dad (yes, he's a dad, but I'm not posting any pictures of the kid out of respect for Brent and Taylor). Some were shocked. Some weren't surprised (how and why????).

My reaction? It was pretty mixed. I was shocked. I thought I was having a fever dream and what I was seeing was fake at first. When I realized it wasn't fake, I was crushed. I felt absolutely horrible for Brent, Taylor, their kid, and all their loved ones. Like, I care about the guy a lot. Obviously.

Ironically, the band members and/or group members I stan are either the black sheep or they're just not as popular. Or they're the fucking scapegoat almost EVERYONE attacks for the stupidest shit. Brent's the black sheep as well as the scapegoat of Panic!, for example....and I would say that Ian is another black sheep too. Not for any negative reasons. He's simply not as popular, due to the fact he was only in Panic! during the Vices era for a short time. He's underrated as FUCK. I'm one of the black sheep in a lot of places [except for friend groups], even in my own family, so it explains why I stan Brent still.

I just want to say that selling drugs and doing drugs aren't inherently bad things to do. This doesn't mean that I'm for kids doing drugs and selling them. Absolutely not. I want people who do drugs or sell drugs to be treated like human beings. I also want them to be able to seek help easier without the judgment or being treated like a criminal. Personally, I don't do any of that, but I understand why someone would. (This kind of thing hits home for me.)

As far as the whole weapon thing is concerned (it was a gun), I personally don't like them and we need better gun control in the United States. I don't think I'd trust anyone who owns a gun because of the possibility that they would hurt me or worse in an argument or something. I've seen my abuser threaten to pull a gun out on my dad when I was a kid. Thankfully it wasn't loaded, but still. It was scary. I wouldn't own a gun because I'm autistic, mentally ill, and I'm afraid of what I might do in certain situations. If someone wants to own a gun for protection, hunting, target practice, or to collect them, fine. BUT YOU DON'T NEED A HUGE ASS GUN THAT THE MILITARY USES TO GO HUNTING OR FOR TARGET PRACTICE. I don't like them, I don't want one, I don't trust myself with one, guns scare me, and I want better gun control in the United States. It terrifies me that people openly carry. I understand that's the Second Amendment and all, but it doesn't change the fact that it terrifies me. As long as you're responsible with that kind of thing, I don't really care.

I don't know what Brent's reason was for (allegedly) owning a weapon (maybe for protection or something?), but it's none of my business.

In my opinion, this is all stupid shit. There are people who have done horrible things and they're STILL free people, but oh, god forbid you do or sell drugs! THAT'S bad. /s

Here's my response below. I'll type out everything, except for the disclaimers and what he was arrested for. I will start from the fifth paragraph on the first screenshot and continue from there. This is so anyone who has a hard time reading any of the screenshots can read them easier.

(My response was from around the time it was announced that he was arrested. Just so you know.)

First screenshot, fifth paragraph:

First off, I just want to say that this situation is a fucked up one for anyone to be in. I would never wish this on anyone. Especially because now, there's a baby involved, so this makes the situation worse. This is pretty difficult for me to put into words without coming off as bitchy or anything like that, so if I get bitchy here, I apologize.

Second screenshot, fifth paragraph:

I don't know what caused this mess to begin with, but I do know that Brent and his wife Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (when I was typing this out initially). While it's a good thing for them, it can be assumed that this is also a very stressful time for them.

Combination of third and fourth screenshots (These are pretty much only theories; not facts, and they will be broken up into paragraphs): 

The pandemic most likely isn’t helping their case. Las Vegas is a HUGE city and I’m sure A LOT of people there are REALLY struggling right now in all aspects. Maybe Brent and Taylor are struggling to pay off hospital bills or whatever (to put this into perspective, the average cost for hospital childbirth in Nevada is around $21,239, according to CBS News). The average salary for an accountant in Nevada is anywhere from $34k to $150k, and that all depends on education, experience (how long you’ve been in said career), certifications, and any additional skills. Take into account any other necessities they have to pay for, like their mortgage, bills, insurance, etc. 

Let’s say that they did manage to pay everything else off, but they’re struggling to pay the hospital bills from when they had their baby. (Having a baby is fucking expensive in the United States, regardless of whether there are complications or not, and regardless of whether you have insurance or not.) Let’s say they’ve tried every single option out there, but nothing seems to give still. Maybe the drug selling was a last resort on Brent’s part. (As I’ve said, I don’t know the full story.)

The whole subject of drug paraphernalia hits home for me. My parents both did drugs when I was a kid. I’ve seen it a lot growing up. My dad was, in the past, in and out of jail for drugs and other things that aren’t relevant here. I’m not sure if my mom was in and out of jail for the same shit, but I know for a fact my dad was. Y’know, because he told me. ANYWAYS. 

I get it. You gotta do what you gotta do. It’s not something I’d do personally, but I understand why somebody would do it. I wouldn’t treat them any differently. Maybe they’re selling drugs or whatever to keep themselves from losing their homes, put food on the table for their families, help pay their bills, pay for their education, whatever. It could be a number of things.

Fifth screenshot (people’s reactions to the news and my thoughts on them):

Now...let’s move on to how people are reacting to the news. There’s a lot of mixed reactions. A lot of people feel bad for Brent, especially since he and Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (as I was typing this). Some people “aren’t surprised” because they were never fans of him in the first place. Others think this is amusing. I’ve seen some people who are solely involved in celebrity news (similar to TMZ) making jokes about the situation, which to me, is appalling.

Let me tell you something. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of Brent or not. This shit isn’t funny or cute in the slightest. It sure isn’t funny or cute to anyone who is being affected by the situation, which includes Brent himself, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. Like, full stop. Have some decency. Y’all are fucking gross. You can dislike Brent all you want, but he’s a real human being who fucked up. Personally, when I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought I was having a fever dream. That is, until I looked it up and actually found that it was true. I was CRUSHED. Why? Because Brent is one of the last people I’d even expect to get into this whole mess. 

Sixth screenshot (my thoughts):

If I’m being honest here...like, BRUTALLY honest, Brent needs to be put in REHAB, not jail. For anyone who has been here (on my Instagram) from when I used to dedicate this account to vintage Panic!, you know how I’ve never said anything but kind things about Brent. From the few times I’ve interacted with him a little bit on Twitter and from how I’ve seen him interact with others on the site, Brent is one of the sweetest people ever. I’m being genuine here. He’s a good guy who fucked up and did some dumb shit. Does that make him bad? No. Then again, as far as I’ve read about the current situation at hand, it’s too early to really determine anything. None of us know what caused him to have drug paraphernalia or anything else that he was arrested for in the first place.

Seventh screenshot (wrap-up):

I’m gonna wrap this up here. My heart aches for Brent, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. I hope that everything gets straightened out, all sides of the story come out, and that Brent can get his shit together again. Like he had been doing since he was kicked out of Panic!. I wish everyone involved nothing but the absolute best right now, given how fucked up the whole situation is. (Just to clear up any confusion, when I was referring to Taylor, I’m NOT referring to Taylor Swift or any other celebrity with the name Taylor. I’m referring to Brent’s wife.) 

If you’ve read this far, thank you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll try to answer as best as I can.

Have my thoughts on the situation changed since February - March of this year? No.

I think that Brent needs some kind of help. That's why I mentioned rehab. It's obvious to me that's the kind of help he needs. I don't believe jail is helpful in certain circumstances (like drug charges, traffic violations, and other nonviolent crimes)....at least in the United States. They treat people who do drugs and/or sell drugs like they're subhuman. Yet there are people who have committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes, and they're still free people. Funny how that works. I'm not too educated about how the jail system works in other countries, so I can't exactly tell you how I feel about that system on an international standpoint.

Brent should be with his wife and child. I hope the guy gets his shit together again. I believe Brent WILL get his shit together. Genuinely. I would never wish anything bad on him.

I don't crucify Brent like a lot of people in the Panic! fandom do. The only reason I would hypothetically do so is if Brent actually committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes (i.e., chomo bullshit, trafficking...like, extreme shit) that would warrant him being locked up and I'd drop him completely at that point. OBVIOUSLY I DON'T SEE HIM DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT. EVER. THAT'S JUST HYPOTHETICAL.

Anyways....have a good day, y'all.

[whitehotharlots]

Elizabeth Warren is a weak candidate

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year.

Last October, prospective presidential candidate Liz Warren stopped by the ur-#Resistance podcast Pod Save America, a program in which several former Obama staffers named John talk about which Gryffindor house Trump administration members belong to, and helpfully explain why Andrew Cuomo is actually way more progressive than Cynthia Nixon. They talked about how Trump had taunted Senator Warren by referring to her as Pocahontas, a cruel play on her claim to Native American heritage. Why, they asked, don’t you try and shut that bully up? Why not take this test from our eugenicist friends at 23 and Me? 

“By golly,” said Liz. “That sounds like a real dandy of an idea!”

Now… this is actually stupider than the mainstream narrative suggests. Because even though it turned out Liz had a smaller percentage of Native American DNA than basically every other American white person, simply taking the test reified an offensive precedent of blood quantum, which is more or less universally rejected among actual Native Americans. Even if it turned out she was 50% Cherokee and had little feathers floating in her piss, the entire spectacle still would have made a mockery of the intense, material struggles faced by Native Americans to this day. 

Now, normally on this blog, I’d go on for several paragraphs about how I don’t actually care about Warren’s heritage (I don’t), how it’s more important to note that she and the rest of the Democratic establishment only care about Native issues to the extent to which they can exploit them, how her refusal to take a stand against DAPL was not just concerning but disgusting, how she can write as many “Pow Wow” recipes as she pleases but at the end of the day she’ll just be another shitty Democrat who expresses solidarity with oppressed people but does nothing to prevent their water being poisoned or their land befouled. But that’s jumping the gun. We’ll only have to worry about being gravely disappointed by Warren if she manages to beat Trump in general election. And I’m sorry to tell you, but she doesn’t have what it takes to get that done.

Warren is a goon. I’m sorry, but she is. She can’t answer softball questions about her recent political history without coming across like a teen who was just caught shoplifting and has been asked why there’s Playstation-sized bulge beneath his shirt. (“D-did I support gay marriage? Well, umm, jeeze louise who can remember something like that? Uhhh. There might be notes? Maybe? But there isn’t. So, I… I guess, well, who can say, really?”)

Warren isn’t nearly as a self-certain as Hillary was, and that’s a problem. It wouldn't be a problem if she actually were a leftist and actually did plan on proffering material solutions to the material problems facing nearly every American. But she’s not. Policy-wise, she is somewhat better than Hillary or Biden. That’s fine. But that’s not enough. She’s already spent too much time courting the Democratic establishment and their corporate base. She knows, therefore, that when a dying cancer patient asks her if she supports Medicare For All, that she has no choice but to lie to his face, that she’s prioritizing corporate cash over helping suffering people, but she lacks Hillary’s soulless cruelty and so she can’t simply laugh away the man’s concerns as naive bro stuff. This causes her to stutter and panic, which makes her (rightfully) appear disingenuous. 

Warren’s plans are likewise a degree or two more progressive than what was being offered by Hillary in 2016. But they’re not straightforward. They are cloaked in the maddening layers of equivocations, loopholes, and means testing that have infected every Democratic proposal since the early 90’s. This is the unavoidable consequence of party seeking to appease two diametrically opposed interests. You can’t satisfy the profligacy of capital while helping everyday people. It cannot be done. And so Democrats rely on Rube Goldberg-style labyrinth policies to obscure this fact, to make it look like they’re trying to help when actually they’re not, they are at best attempting to add a little sugar to the arsenic so that we won’t fight back so much when they pour it down our throats.

Obama could pull this off. We all knew Obama was lying in 2012, but he was appealing enough to make us rationalize away his lies. Same thing with Bill Clinton. If you’re not old enough to remember, check out this debate clip. The man looked like he was going to crawl through your TV and fuck you, and most of us were cool with that. Hillary lacked this appeal. Warren lacks it even moreso. And, yes, I guess this is essentially affective and subjective--just my opinion and whatfor. But any soberheaded person should be troubled by the fact that Warren’s campaign as already absorbed the most viscerally annoying people from the Hillary campaign, and is already aping HRC’s most repulsive and alienating tactics.  

These are people like Sady Doyle and Amanda Marcotte: neurotic, celibate scolds who engage with politics primarily as a way to actualize their petty grievances and insecurities. These people are incredibly unappealing to everyone who isn’t immediately inclined to like them, which is about 90% of the American electorate. And this unappealingness has nothing to do with their gender or their physical appearance. It’s because they are liars who are running a manifestly cynical grift, and they don’t have enough charm or intelligence to trick voters into thinking they’re doing something else.  They are electoral poison, and their outsize presence with the Democrat establishment is a big reason why the Democrats get their asses beat so consistently even though they are supported unanimously by the American media and cultural classes. 

Their grossness was encapsulated very succinctly yesterday, in the misadventures of Ms. Ashlee Preston. Preston is a large black trans woman who works as an official Warren campaign surrogate. She took to twitter to do what these people do: lie about Bernie Sanders and his supporters. They need to lie, because they are working for a candidate who is manifestly more regressive and less electable than him, but they still want to position themselves as the most radical in the field. So she lied. She said that Sanders hadn’t done anything to support gay rights since the 70’s, and that therefore it was actually good that Warren voted for Reagan twice during the AIDS crisis, because that means she grew into her present woke state.

This was all par for the course. Liars lie. Preston is paid to lie. So she lied. 

Also par for the course: Bernie supporters asking her what on earth she was talking about, and doing so politely. And then, once again par for the course, the liar claiming to have been viciously harassed by Bernie Bros, which is meant to validate the lies that warranted the response--which actually wasn’t a lie since it was just, like, sarcasm that y’all folx was too hateful to understand. 

This process has been going on pretty much non-stop since the middle of 2015. Anyone who pays cursory attention to it knows what’s happening, but the weird rules of political decorum make it so we all have to pretend to take it seriously. But yesterday there was a twist. Preston, apparently, had a bunch of semi-coherent tweets in which she said all kinds of neat stuff about Mexicans and Asians. These got posted. She reacted by saying she was kinda sorry but also still right and that it was harassment to bring up that stuff. And… that was it. Cancel Culture’s denizens applauded her apology (a courtesy often provided to those who are willing to lie about leftists). She is still employed by the Warren campaign. The incident wasn’t discussed in any mainstream news sources. The outrage over her old tweets was actually co-opted to smear those who unearthed them. 

The simple observation here was made by hundreds of people online: if this were a Sanders surrogate, they would have been fired immediately, the affair would have been discussed on cable news, and it would have been held up as proof that Sanders should drop out immediately. And when I say hundreds of people posted something along these lines, I might be understating this. The duplicity on display here is manifest to everyone who isn’t on the take. Everyone can see how rotten this is. There’s no question about it. No argument to be had. I’m sorry to say, but this kind of brazen cynicism does not go over well with most voters. It is, in fact, incredibly alienating. The people who claim universal healthcare is inherently racist and attempt to ruin people’s lives for using imprecise language can’t just turn around and demand immediate ablution for their own hateful acts. Or… I guess they can, since that’s what just happened. But they shouldn’t be able to. And the fact that she was able to, so completely and so easily, proves just how much of a shitty fucking grift this whole thing is. You don’t need to be a genius to realize that. You don’t even need to be well-read. You just need to pay a little attention and possess a little bit of self-respect. And that’s why Warren is going to lose.

[michaelmilkers]

what is it, exactly, that your 'friends' were angry with u about? i dont want to be invasive and u can ignore this ask, i just think that altho im leaning in ur favor i dont want to decide whether or not to continue supporting you without all of the data. i.e., you could be saying something wildly racist, or you could have insulted someones dog. obviously completely different things that merit completely different responses. i can message you if u dont want to share with the general public :)

putting it under a cut

this

i said in the blacklist chat about a month ago “is circumcision common in latinos” for a thing i was writing which was not only something i couldve googled (which i ended up doing) but also incredibly poor phrasing and i apologized

i was sometimes too open about sexual topics in the nsfw chat (which was 16+) because i was under the impression everyone was okay with it because no one ever really told me it was tmi (sometimes i put stuff in general that i didnt consider nsfw but other people considered nsfw but most of those times i deleted whatever it was i said/sent) (also for the record i had a general rule against sending irl porn in the nsfw chat and so i never did that aside from like the first few months of the servers existence where i was still trying to figure out how to go about having a server at all)

there was a “jewish” role in the server that some jewish people in the server asked for but apparently some people were uncomfortable with the fact that there was a jewish role but not roles for other ethnicities or minorities. people communicated this to me and i was going to make other roles but hadnt gotten around to it yet when everything went down bc spoons

i wasnt open enough about the reasons why i banned people (which only happened a couple times) so people assumed i was only banning them because they disagreed with me, which wasnt true

i have a habit of publicly (i.e. on the blog) responding to criticism with passive aggression or jokes, something im aware of and actively working on, and its something i dont do in private conversation because i dont think its productive, in fact one of my rules in the server was not to respond to disagreements or arguments or discourse with reaction gifs or emotes or memes or stuff like that. 

and this is the biggest incident, tw for genital mutilation and nsfw discussion, and its a long one so bear with me:

basically in december i mentioned in the nsfw chat that i happened to come across a video of a woman essentially sewing her vagina shut. i did not send the video and did not describe it in graphic detail. i shouldnt have brought it up at all, but this was another case of me thinking something wasnt that bad but it upset a few other people. because of the nature of the video the most i will say about it is that it was not a permanent thing, it was done with sterile medical-grade stuff, and it was a masochism thing rather than like actually permanently mutilating the vagina. i was browsing around the internet going down various rabbit holes out of boredom and i came across this video, i did not search for this kind of thing, i just watched it out of curiosity.

anyways, some people were upset by it, i apologized for mentioning it and that was kind of that. but then the next day i received an anonymous ask calling me a freak whos into genital mutilation so i copied the ask in the blacklist chat (tagging it any time i mentioned the video in any level of detail) and basically what then happened that night was that i received multiple anons over the course of a couple hours calling me a freak and greatly exaggerating what happened. i would post the ask in the blacklist chat, me and a couple other people would talk about what was said, and then i would get another anon or two about it.

from the start i did not take the anons seriously because like, youre fucking liveblogging a conversation YOURE IN in my inbox, and i stated multiple times that if they wanted to have a serious conversation about it they could dm me or bring it up in the server because i was not going to entertain this back and forth bullshit.

i called the anon a clown and they sent clown emojis in response, which is when it kind of started getting out of control. me and a lot of other people in the server were making fun of the anon and joking about it calling them “clown anon” and stuff. and then the anon sent an ask containing the sentence “do u really want to be on the team of the guy who watches pussy sewing for fun!” (directed at everyone else in the server joking with me) and i thought the phrase “pussy sewing” was fucking HILARIOUS so everyone started making pussy sewing jokes and calling the anon clussy anon and saying shit like “pussy sewing sunday” (bc this was happening on a sunday night) and “pussy sewing club” and shit like that.

i said multiple times during this that i was not making fun of the video or the subject matter i was making fun of the anon(s) and their dramatic bullshit, but some people didnt believe me ig. at the time i was maintaining the opinion that as long as its all sterile and there is no permanent damage then stuff like that is fine and its none of my business what people do to their own bodies, which i still kind of agree with? im not super sure.

but anyway a few people thought i was a shitty person because of this, one of these people left and the other two said they were going to leave so i banned them, one person was very upset by the subject matter and wanted to take a break from the server, i told them sorry about the situation and to be safe. when one of my mods came online and saw what happened she was very upset about the fact that people had left and i didnt really listen to what she was saying (something ive apologized for since then) but said that for the sake of the person taking a break this was to never be brought up again. i agreed and asked my other mod to delete the conversation because i was low on spoons at the time, they said sure and deleted it for me (and during on the incident on friday this person told everyone that i “made them” delete the messages and that they were too afraid to say no to me and it was disgusting) and that was the last time the situation was brought up until this weekend.

i had actually learned from the situation, both about the things i bring up and also the content i look at even out of boredom or curiosity, and the ethics of that, and i have since then not looked at anything like that online. the people in my server were not aware of this because i was told to never bring it up again, so i didnt, and no one brought it up to me privately so i assumed people werent upset about it anymore. so they assumed i didnt care or i was still looking at shit like that and just wasnt talking about it. i had absolutely no idea people were still harboring bad feelings about this incident and if i did i wouldve apologized again and told them about how i had learned from the situation. i explained all of this on saturday and nobody seemed to care.

multiple times during the situation this weekend i said that their criticisms are valid and tried to explain myself and apologize and own up to what i did, but apparently because im mad about them bullying me and getting people to raid the server im not actually sorry?? according to them.

which is more of them just trying to gaslight me and manipulate me into thinking this is all my fault and i deserved it instead of that event being fucking bullshit.

one person said “your criticisms are valid but the way you brought them up isnt” or something like that in quotation marks in an attempt to mock me but like,,, yeah thats exactly what im saying lmao.

so yeah thats basically it? those are the main things. sorry this got so long.

[marymosley]

Satellite-Based Monitoring Is Unconstitutional for All Unsupervised Recidivists

The Supreme Court of North Carolina held in State v. Grady, ___ N.C. ___ (2019), that satellite-based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders is unconstitutional as applied to any unsupervised person who was ordered to enroll in SBM solely because he or she is a recidivist. By unsupervised, the court meant a person not on probation, parole, or post-release supervision. Today’s post takes a closer look at the Grady decision and what it may mean for North Carolina’s SBM program going forward.

We’ve been writing about Grady on this blog since 2015. Let me see if I can bring you up to speed in one paragraph. Torrey Grady was convicted of second-degree sexual offense in 1997 and indecent liberties with a child in 2006. At a 2013 bring-back hearing, he was ordered to enroll in SBM for life, which is statutorily mandatory for a recidivist. G.S. 14-208.40(a)(1). North Carolina’s courts rejected his argument that SBM is an unconstitutional search, concluding that Fourth Amendment precedent related to GPS technology didn’t apply to a civil regime like SBM. State v. Grady, 233 N.C. App. 788 (2014). The Supreme Court of the United States vacated those decisions, noting that civil regimes, too, can include searches within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The Court remanded the case to North Carolina for a determination of whether SBM is a reasonable search. Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015). On remand, the trial court concluded that SBM was reasonable and therefore constitutional. A divided court of appeals reversed, as discussed here, concluding that SBM was an unconstitutional search as applied to Mr. Grady, largely because the State failed to present any evidence of the efficacy of SBM. The State appealed as of right based on the dissent, which brings us to the most recent decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

As instructed by the Supreme Court of the United States, North Carolina’s high court walked through a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to evaluate the constitutionality of the search, balancing the defendant’s “reasonable privacy expectations” against the “legitimate governmental interests” motivating SBM. I won’t walk through the entire analysis, but let me highlight a few items that I think might be important in considering Grady’s reach.

On the privacy side of the balance, a key to the court’s analysis was that, when it comes to recidivists, the statute requires the trial court to impose lifetime SBM with no individualized assessment of the offender or his or her offense characteristics on the front end. Meanwhile, the back-end procedure for removing a person from SBM (G.S. 14-208.43) goes before the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission, not a judge—and so far, every enrollee who has petitioned the Commission for removal has been denied relief. The court also noted that the device weighs a half-pound and requires the enrollee to spend two hours charging it each day, “tethered to the wall,” slip op. at 13, rejecting the State’s argument that this was a mere inconvenience.

On the government interest side of the balance, the court concluded that the State did not present any empirical evidence demonstrating that the SBM program effectively advances its interests in protecting the public or investigating and deterring crimes.

Balancing those factors, the court concluded that SBM violated the Fourth Amendment as applied to Mr. Grady. Not only that, the court said, it is unconstitutional for any individual in the same category as Mr. Grady—which is to say anyone enrolled solely by virtue of being a recidivist who is not on probation, parole, or post-release supervision.

The court described its holding as “neither squarely facial nor as-applied.” Slip op. at 60. It is as-applied in the sense that it applies only to the “current implementation of the SBM program”; does not apply to defendants still under probation, parole, or PRS; and does not apply to defendants enrolled in SBM for a reason other than being a recidivist (like being an aggravated offender, a sexually violent predator, a person convicted of rape or sexual offense of a child by an adult). As to unsupervised recidivists, however, it is facial, and the court “enjoin[ed] application of mandatory lifetime SBM to other unsupervised individuals when the SBM is authorized based solely on a ‘recidivist’ finding.” Slip op. at 61.

I had previously conceptualized the “Grady hearing” (the part of the SBM determination hearing where a trial judge considers the reasonableness of SBM) as a judicial gloss that might save an otherwise unconstitutional statute by limiting its application to the subset of offenders for whom the State could establish its reasonableness. Sure, we didn’t yet have an example of an appellate case where the State had made the required showing (particularly on the issue of effectiveness), but I assumed it might be possible with the right record evidence. After this latest chapter of Grady, it is not possible in recidivist-only cases once their probation, parole, or post-release supervision ends—at least not under the “current implementation of the SBM program.”

With that in mind, is there any reason at all to conduct a reasonableness inquiry in recidivist-only cases? I might have thought there would be, to determine whether the search was reasonable during the term of probation or PRS supervision. But in limiting its holding to unsupervised offenders, the court appeared to say that SBM is indeed mandatory for recidivists during their term of supervision. Slip op. at 67 (“[B]ecause of the independent statutory provisions governing conditions for parole, post-release supervision, and probation, an individual who is a recidivist is still automatically subject to SBM during the period of State supervision.”).

I also wonder how much the SBM program will need to evolve from its “current implementation” before it falls outside ambit of the facial holding in Grady. For instance, would a new device make a difference? In fact, DACJJ has already moved on from the ExacuTrack One device discussed in the opinion to something called the LOC8 device. The new device weighs 5.5 ounces instead of 8.7 ounces, and it has a removable battery pack that can be charged without “tethering.”

So what happens now? To the extent that the court’s ruling is styled as an injunction, it would seem that anyone who falls into the “facial” unsupervised recidivist-only category ought not to be tracked any longer. See slip op. at 61 (“[O]ur holding . . . enjoins application of mandatory lifetime SBM to other unsupervised individuals . . . .”).  My understanding is that there are over 200 such persons currently wearing the device. The mandate in the case issued on September 5, 2019.

Grady’s applicability to enrollees in categories aside from recidivists remains to be seen. As a reminder, the other statutory categories of lifetime SBM are defendants convicted of aggravated offenses, sexually violent predators, and those convicted of rape or sexual offense with a child by an adult. Aggravated offenses, you may recall, are those involving vaginal, anal, or oral penetration through the use of force or the threat of serious violence, or with a victim who is under 12—which our courts have interpreted as including only rapes. (The dissent’s characterization of Grady’s sexual offense conviction as an aggravated offense, see slip op. at 5, n. 2 (Newby, J., dissenting), would be a departure from our existing case law from the court of appeals, see State v. Green, 229 N.C. App. 121 (2013), but the supreme court has never squarely ruled on the question.) The other enrollment category is persons convicted of an offense involving the physical, mental, or sexual abuse of a minor who require monitoring for a period set by the court based on the results of a risk assessment (usually a Static-99) or other findings.

Sexually violent predators and abuse-of-a-minor defendants receive a front-end, individualized assessment of risk that might differentiate them from recidivists. But if we assume for the sake of argument that the intrusiveness and effectiveness prongs of the reasonableness balancing test are roughly the same for these categories as they were for recidivists, then it seems that all of them could be on shaky constitutional footing after Grady. We may know soon, as more cases are pending before the supreme court.

The post Satellite-Based Monitoring Is Unconstitutional for All Unsupervised Recidivists appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law.

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