Ed Sheeran And Live (bad) Country Is Not A Combination I Thought I’d Hear In My Life. And Now I Wish

Economists are the modern Cassandra

I think my profile picture says it all.

if you had to choose one pokemon to be your absolute favorite out of every pokemon which one would you choose. its okay to choose a "basic" one

Periodic reminder that you are not immune to reactionary radicalization through fandom.

We all know the “jokes” about how old bronies either came out as queer or became fascists - except they’re not really jokes, and a lot of the queer ones admit to having been in the pipeline before they came out (some in a way that implies they never totally got out of said pipeline and don’t understand the gravity of it),

GamerGate was an entire right-wing reactionary movement that was - and this is not hyperbole - partially responsible for turning fascism into a “legitimate” position by the American Overton window, composed entirely of people who feared losing their fan spaces,

We’ve had terfs right here on tumblr dot com BRAGGING about how useful fandom is as a recruiting space,

TJLC was a big pipeline for acephobia on this hellsite in particular, when people argued that headcanoning Sherlock as ace was inherently homophobic because it was denying a TOTALLY GONNA BE CANON (while the creators were promising that it wasn’t going to be canon) gay pairing, and puritanical, and just HAVING that headcanon was saying that people COULDN’T ship Johnlock, all in the interest of a “fake” sexuality and “pretending to be oppressed” and oh whoops there you went,

We see people who all but center their fandom activity and identities around figuring out which people in predominantly queer fandom spaces are SECRETLY PEDOPHILES AND GROOMERS, acting consciously or otherwise under the assumption that predominantly queer fandom spaces are just massively infested with them in a way that other spaces are not for SOME reason, who twist the definition of “pedophilia” in these spaces until it covers shipping a 17-year old fictional character with an 18-year old fictional character, or a 30-year old with a 45-year old, or including an autistic character in a ship, and drawing two 17-year old characters kissing constitutes “child porn”, and who unironically say we should bring back the Hays Code and Censorship Is Good Actually And Our Problem Is We Don’t Do It Enough and this often becomes a pipeline to “sex ed is child abuse; people shouldn’t even know what sex is until they turn 18; you need my consent to wear certain outfits in public if I see them as sexually charged, and Pride SHOULD be an assimilationist sideshow for our corporate overlords family-friendly party with no sadness or anger or ESPECIALLY acknowledgement of sex allowed”,

We’ve seen otherwise progressive people defend literal hate symbols in fanart when pushback against the above brand of reactionaries gets corrupted into zero-nuance “it’s us vs. them so anything they don’t like is Good”,

Even outside of those examples some of the most vicious, unapologetic, blatant queerphobic abuse I’ve seen in recent years hasn’t come from right-wingers but from LGBT+ people, dressing their deep, violent, seething hatred for queer people who aren’t exactly like them in a thin veneer of progressive language, who have become so convinced that they’re the main character of the fucking universe that they think writing or enjoying a queer story that doesn’t resonate with them is more queerphobic than sending a queer person who writes or enjoys such a story countless rape and death threats and denying their identity,

We’ve seen these examples again and again and again, and we keep seeing it again and again and again, so I am once again on my knees BEGGING people to recognize that this is not Something That Happens To Other, BAD People, or Something That Happens To People In BAD Fandoms, or Something That Happens To People On The OTHER Side Of Perennial Drama; this is something that CAN happen to you.

These things are the result of the fact that fandom is, by nature, a place of heightened emotion and if you don’t know what to look out for that is very exploitable; you need to know the methods people use to do this, simply Being In The Right Fandoms or Liking The Right Ships is not enough.

So, if you see someone trying to convince you that you have the ONLY valid approach to any specific character, or ship, or show, or whatever, that your ship is activism and your fanfics are praxis, and liking something else or liking the same thing differently is Only For Bad People, that is the single biggest red flag that YOU NEED TO RUN, THEY’RE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT

Having petty grandparents is the best. Grandpa gives you $50 so grandma gives you $75. Honestly I wished they both lived in the same town so they could one up each other more often.

DRAG IS NO LONGER BANNED IN TENNESSEE ✨✨

Be the kid you know you are

If peaceful protests were banned then we would be heading to a point were revolution is necessary quickly. I might be too pedantic about what I mean by rioting. I really mean rioting as more breaking into stores and homes, lighting stuff on fire without concern for safety, involving people who don’t want the be involved (not police or lawmakers or people in those positions of power. Like the random person who was walking down the street at the time). I’ve always been a bit specific about words (like ramifications and consequences don’t mean the same thing). So that’s why I said the Jan 6 RIOT and the George Floyd RIOT. To me the riots are different than the protests and perpetrated by a different group of ideas and often members or nonmembers with more extremist views. Most people won’t riot.

I can see what you mean though about my language suggesting that rioting and anything associated with rioting is bad so maybe the logical step is to ban protests. It’s not something I would have picked up myself so thank you for pointing it out.

I wonder how the prevalence of revolution stories in our (United States) literature and media (hunger games, divergent, etc.) has introduced the idea that revolution is the first thing to do when a system is broken. How has that idea convinced people that rioting may be the correct thing to do (Capitol riot, George Floyd riots, etc.)?

Ppl be like “ I want an actual male gem, not just Steven.”

Jeez, it’s like having only one character

to represent your whole gender

in a group composed all of another gender

is a bit upsetting huh?

Anyone else feel like life (especially in America) is like gambling in a rigged game. Like oh you have to pay $70 for each college application and even if you are a solid applicant at least 75% will reject you. Oh you want to apply to jobs. Well you need a cover letter that is specific for why you want to earn minimum wage at Starbucks and you better not put down that you need a job. We don’t want any one who isn’t committed to our corporate overlords. Oh you want to volunteer in a lab. Well not sure that you are the right fit for our lab right now. And don’t get me started on trying to get a response from potential PhD advisors that you email.

I’m just really tired.

Does anyone else ever feel this pervasive feeling of wrongness? Like not depressed (at the moment) but just that you are wrong in some weird mental sense.