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strongly urge any of the "voting is harm reduction" people to read this piece

from the intro:

At some point the left in the so-called U.S. realized that convincing people to rally behind a “lesser evil” was a losing strategy. The term “harm reduction” was appropriated to reframe efforts to justify their participation and coerce others to engage in the theater of what is called “democracy” in the U.S. Harm reduction was established in the 1980s as a public health strategy for people dealing with substance use issues who struggle with abstinence. According to the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC) the principles of harm reduction establish that the identified behavior is “part of life” so they “choose not to ignore or condemn but to minimize harmful effects” and work towards breaking social stigmas towards “safer use.” The HRC also states that, “there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction.” Overall, harm reduction focuses on reducing adverse impacts associated with harmful behaviors. The proposition of “harm reduction” in the context of voting means something entirely different from those organizing to address substance use issues. The assertion is that “since this political system isn’t going away, we’ll support politicians and laws that may do less harm.” The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?” [x] At some point the left in the so-called U.S. realized that convincing people to rally behind a “lesser evil” was a losing strategy. The term “harm reduction” was appropriated to reframe efforts to justify their participation and coerce others to engage in the theater of what is called “democracy” in the U.S. Harm reduction was established in the 1980s as a public health strategy for people dealing with substance use issues who struggle with abstinence. According to the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC) the principles of harm reduction establish that the identified behavior is “part of life” so they “choose not to ignore or condemn but to minimize harmful effects” and work towards breaking social stigmas towards “safer use.” The HRC also states that, “there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction.” Overall, harm reduction focuses on reducing adverse impacts associated with harmful behaviors. The proposition of “harm reduction” in the context of voting means something entirely different from those organizing to address substance use issues. The assertion is that “since this political system isn’t going away, we’ll support politicians and laws that may do less harm.” The idea of a ballot being capable of reducing the harm in a system rooted in colonial domination and exploitation, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism is an extraordinary exaggeration. There is no person whose lives aren’t impacted everyday by these systems of oppression, but instead of coded reformism and coercive “get out the vote” campaigns towards a “safer” form of settler colonialism, we’re asking “what is the real and tragic harm and danger associated with perpetuating colonial power and what can be done to end it?” [x]

(thanks to @mousieta for introducing me to this piece!)

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We’re super excited to announce a new digital Bad Buddy fanzine for Palestine – both to raise money for for We Are Not Numbers (a youth-led nonprofit based in Gaza that tells the stories of Palestinian youth and advocates for their human rights), but also to be able to keep talking about the fight for Palestinian liberation, why we cannot get used to this genocide, and what we can do to fight Israel’s settler colonialism and ongoing nakba until Palestine is free from river to sea.

Your mods for this zine are Science (@sciencebluefeelings) and Deepa (@fiercynn)! It is both of our first times modding a zine, but we’re fortunate to have guidance from friends with much more experience. The digital zine will feature new fanart, fanfic, and fan poetry exclusive to the zine, made by seventeen different contributors in Bad Buddy fandom. We expect the zine to be out in mid-April 2024.

We’re also opening up our Order Form now so that you can pre-order a copy of the zine if you choose. Our How to Order Your Zine page explains how you can make your donation directly to WANN and share proof of your donation with us while still maintaining your privacy. Of course, if you want to wait until we’ve shared more about the zine, or until the zine is completed, that is totally fine – the order form will stay open through the end of May 2024 at least. 

You can follow us here and/or on Twitter (@/BadBuddyFanzine), where we’ll be sharing more information in the coming weeks, including spotlights on our contributing writers and artists, more about We Are Not Numbers and the fight for Palestinian liberation, information, and more! Or, if you just want to be updated on when the zine is completed, you can sign up here to join our email list. 

Check out our FAQs for more information, and email us any additional questions you have at [email protected]. (Our asks are closed so that we can keep information streamlined through email.) Stay tuned, and please share so that we can make this a successful zine and fundraiser!

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An Update...

I'm back.... kinda?

Its been a long stretch of months studying but I just passed my 5th exam and I only have one more to go. Hopefully that one can get knocked out in a month and I can return to my bloggy shenanigans.

I haven't really been watching much (obviously) but I *did* finish Only Friends and was... underwhelmed. Not even sure it is worth putting together a review.

Its been a sparse year for dramas for me, I think I've watched maybe 4 or 5 so probably won't be doing much by way of reviews. But hopefully I can start watching things soon!

Anyone got any recs?

#mousie squeaks #in other news my lowkey straykids affection #has become a fullblown hyperfixation #luckily for you #i have made a sideblog

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I think Brian Henson and David Kemper should make a Star War. It’s wonderful that Andor legalised sex but it’s not exactly giving the viewer 8 new fetishes per episode now is it. Also there should be puppets.

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X

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i love having like a single mutual for each of my niche interests its like being a president with a cabinet. and what news from my Secretary of House of Leaves today

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Look... im gonna say it...

Yaoi hands

#daesung #as you should

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Love, Loyalty, Power, Insanity.

You know that part in “Meltdown” where Aeryn says “I love it when you take control” and John says “That’s the drexim talking” and Aeryn raises her eyebrows and says “No it isn’t”. That part makes me FERAL, every time, because while I know it might seem like just a sexy, flirty, throwaway exchange, it’s honestly anything but.

John Crichton is an unhinged bastard with whom Aeryn is hopelessly in love. She is willing to follow him anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. She’ll follow him to the ends of the universe, into the face of mortal danger, and down paths that lead to almost certain death, again and again (and again). She would quite literally follow him into the swirling, all-consuming, universe-destroying vortex of a wormhole if he asked her to (and eventually, he will). She loves him. She respects him. She believes in him. She is loyal to him beyond good sense or reason, and is willing to commit herself to every single one of his impossible, insane, foolhardy plans.

“I love it when you take control” she says, and oh, it’s true. When she says it, I can’t help but think about the many times throughout the seasons we see just how true it is.

Exhibit A: Liars, Guns and Money (s2)

John is at peak instability at the end of this season and he presents a crackpot plan to the group. Aeryn is a freak, so she finds it arousing. Seriously–she’s turned on by his mad genius here. She wants to jump him. When I first watched this scene, I thought “Wow, okay. Aeryn has never wanted to fuck John more than she does at this moment. Interesting. A lot to unpack.” She is slightly scared of (and for) him, but mostly she’s just really into John when he demonstrates his intelligence, charisma, adaptability, ingenuity, and capability as a leader by taking charge of situations–even, maybe especially, when he exhibits the fearless confidence and nonchalant rule-breaking, dangerous risk-taking behavior of an absolute madman (P.S. Aeryn needs therapy).

Exhibit B: Fractures (s3)

She just lost him to a suicide mission, and now he stands before her again, proposing yet another suicide mission. She’s shattered, emotionally decimated, a shell of her former self. She can’t even look at him. And yet… and yet. She still can’t say no. She knows she can’t say no. John has a vision and a plan–a crazy one, as always–and she’s prepared to follow it dutifully, as always. She’ll follow him anywhere. She’ll follow him to his death. She’ll follow him to hers. The level of loyalty she feels to this man… it’s beautiful, and also terrifying.

Exhibit C: We’re So Screwed (s4)

John is insane in the membrane… AGAIN… and delivers another half-baked plan sure to go awry. He is legitimately the most powerful man in the room, and Aeryn has never been more in love. I find this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment deeply poignant; the look they exchange is made of pure love, reverence, sadness, and understanding. It is equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. There’s something sorrowful yet ultimately peaceful about her attraction to him here. Aeryn is in love with and committed to John and by this point, she knows and accepts the risks. She knows he could die. She knows SHE could die. Been there, done that (more than once!). Whereas previous seasons find Aeryn loyal yet conflicted, there’s virtually no conflict here. She knows who John Crichton is and what he is capable of: he’s a man who has been driven to the brink of insanity; who has the most formidable, destructive knowledge locked in his brain; who is able to command rooms full of the most powerful beings; who can bend the fabric of the universe to his will; who can singlehandedly destroy entire galaxies; who is fundamentally pure of heart yet willing to commit atrocities; who has selflessly sacrificed his life to save millions, but most importantly to save her; because, above all, John Crichton is utterly, unequivocally, viciously in love with Aeryn Sun. She knows all of this, and she’s content in her commitment to him. They’ve been through the ringer (and will almost certainly go through it again), but she has resolved to stand by him till the bitter end.

Exhibit D: The Peacekeeper Wars (s5, kind of)

Remember when I said Aeryn would quite literally follow John into the swirling, all-consuming, universe-destroying vortex of a wormhole if he asked her to (and eventually, he would)? Well, here we are, folks. John reaches peak destructive insanity and Aeryn doesn’t falter. Her commitment to him is almost as terrifying as his commitment to his cause and his willingness to do whatever it takes–whatever it takes–to get what he wants. I would say Aeryn follows him blindly, but to suggest that would be an insult to her as an autonomous, self-directed being. She doesn’t follow blindly. She knows what she’s doing by choosing to align herself with John, as much as he knows what he’s doing. And that’s the kicker: John has never been more lucid than he is at the end of PKW. His insane actions have never been more calculated or considered. That’s what makes this the most dangerous and terrifying brand of insanity we’ve ever seen him display. And Aeryn supports him. She joins him. The Aeryn of PKW retains all the inner peace and resolve she had in s4, but with darker and more sinister undertones–this is the most complicated, vivid depiction of Aeryn’s love and unwavering loyalty, respect of John’s power, and willingness to join him in absolute insanity. Together, they make quite a team: destructive, deadly, diabolical. Their commitment to peace is violent. Their heroism is villainous. They are prepared to die for what they believe in, and they are willing to take everyone else with them.

“I love it when you take control.”

Yeah. She does. She really does.

ANYWAY… Gotta love a show wherein a single comedic line (from an episode that could, at first glance, be viewed as little more than fluffy fanservice) is actually important, and speaks to fundamental truths about the characters, their relationship, and their choices over the course of the entire series. Gotta love it.

#farscape #reblogging to dog back into this delicious meta #nearing the end of my rewatch

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studying specifically how white cis women use righteous victimhood as a tool to exert power and reinforce dehumanizing systems that benefit them personally will absolutely give you a leg up in understanding group dynamics present in interpersonal conflicts, I will say that.

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OTW Candidate Audrey Richards

Alright, it looks like the shit's about to hit the fan. The full names for OTW Board Candidates have been released, and it looks like Audrey Richards recently ran for political office as a Republican. Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Audrey_Richards

Based on what happened last year with Tiffany G, I want to make something clear: This is not a plot by the Republican party to destroy AO3.

Audrey Richards is an OTW volunteer in good standing. She wouldn't be able to run if she wasn't.

Also, if the Republican Party wanted to destroy AO3, they'd have Tucker Carlson or whoever put the site on blast and whip up the Conservative hate machine against the site. That hasn't happened because I don't believe that the drivers of the Republican Party are aware that the site exists.

What's happening here is that in the Republican Party, Audrey is small fry enough that affiliation with AO3 hasn't become a career liability for her. But, seriously, given how fascist the Republican Party is these days, I would not advise anyone who loves the site to be affiliated with the U.S.'s Republican Party. That's peak Voting for the Leopards Eating Faces Party behavior!

Okay, with all that said, even before this came out, Audrey Richards wasn't impressing me as a candidate. You can read her Q&As here: https://elections.transformativeworks.org/category/2023-en/2023-candidates/2023-audrey-r/

She answers variations of I Don't Know to a LOT of questions (which none of the other candidates do) and has some definite clunkers of answers. I won't be voting for her, but that was already the case based upon her answers.

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I'm not saying Mat would willingly step into a mushroom circle

I'm saying Mat would see it, clock it as extremely suspicious, try to avoid it, then see a child almost step in and immediately fall in rescuing the child from it (while swearing the whole time that he won't do it).

#wheel of time

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Fran drescher opposes vaccine mandates just fyi

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Oh no, a writers and actors strike!

New media production might be disrupted?

What a perfect time to....

Read some Discworld by Terry Pratchett.

Recommendations for first books:

Guards! Guards! (First of the City Watch books. Pokes a lot of fun at fantasy tropes but is smart as a whip.)

Going Postal (Con man must save a crumbling civic institution. He's great at it! )

Witches Abroad (fairy tales and grouchy old women, with jokes)

Hogfather (Christmas-y, but also about what it means to be a person, with jokes.)

Small Gods (faith, a talking tortoise, and an existential crisis, but with jokes!)

Monsterous Regiment (cross dressing and the inherent cultism of military nationalism. Also jokes.)

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you know what’s fucking wild? when @end-otw-racism’s first action started in may, they were incredibly clear that they had narrow and specific demands for the otw, and that their demands were commitments the otw had already made. if you need a refresher, here are their demands:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

and despite the fact that these were taken specifically from the otw’s own commitments, a lot of people immediately decided that this was an overreach on the campaign’s part. they fabricated supposed secret agendas that the campaign must have; they invoked slippery slope fallacies to say that this would lead to mass content removal for anything on ao3 that even skimmed the line of racism; they claimed to know who was leading the campaign and tried to discredit the campaign based on that, because they claimed that those people had larger agendas.

despite all of that, otw themselves came out reaffirming their commitment to these priorities. which is great, but that was not the end of the work, because those commitments were made by the existing board, which is about to turn over in the upcoming board elections. it's essential to hold the incoming board accountable to the previous board's commitments.

but when @end-otw-racism’s second action around otw board elections has continued to keep those specific, clear demands in their focus, they’re getting hounded for it from the other side: by people claiming that this analysis they did of the otw board candidates – in which eotwr made it clear that they were looking at whether the candidates talked about any of the eotwr demands or not – was racist for not counting the work asian candidates raised around reaching out to non-western and non-english speaking fans as fulfilling eotwr’s demands.

(which, let’s be clear, they don’t! issues around access for non-western and non-anglophone fans, around the way chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers have been mistreated by otw, around translation, are all worthy issues to be pushing on. eotwr has even uplifted some of them. but they are separate from eotwr's core demands.)

so first eotwr is overreaching and trying to bring down every fanwork that could be even slightly misconstrued as racist, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals…and now they��re racist for not addressing every form of racism, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals?

it is completely valid for eotwr to look at the board candidates’ platforms and say “they did not mention these things that we are looking for”, because the things that eotwr is looking for are commitments otw has already made. it is not eotwr picking out certain “keywords” that they’d like to see – they are looking at whether potential incoming board members are prioritizing those specific commitments and will uphold them. and otw has had those commitments for three years! this is not new stuff!

also, if you read that analysis again, eotwr is not even criticizing the candidates for not mentioning their demands! they are simply pointing out what we can glean about the candidates from their platforms and bios, because the platforms are the main information we have about the board candidates right now. eotwr has been incredibly clear that they want to talk to candidates and learn more about their priorities. they've also been clear in urging other people to come up with their own analyses of the board candidates, and they have in fact reblogged and uplifted other people’s perspectives on the candidates.

i cannot stress enough that we need more folks in this space to be pushing on anti-racism, and eotwr having a narrow scope is not a bad thing. there is endless work to be done, and others who disagree with eotwr’s tactics should start their own campaigns! eotwr literally only started like two months ago with a call to action. it’s very possible to emulate them and push for parallel priorities.

advocacy work also needs groups with different tactics and approaches. my day job is in climate change advocacy, and we do our most effect work when multiple organizations are representing different perspectives and pushing in different ways. i'd love to see that kind of advocacy ecosystem built up in fandom.

but right now, eotwr is the only campaign i know of trying to do large-scale anti-racism work around otw at all. and to actively push against the campaign because you think it’s racist to focus on specific goals and gently critique board candidates based only on those specific goals? is, i'm sorry, fucking ridiculous.

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마지막 춤 넌 나와 춰야 해

no min woo as der tod in the 10th anniversary 2022 korean production of elisabeth das musical.

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ok so the main critique (after shifting through the guilt tripping and vitriol) of eotwr’s statement on the candidates is that it’s US-centric.

And how. They never mentioned the US? Is antiracism US-centric? Updating the ToS of AO3 US-centric? Hiring a diversity consultant is US-centric?

also, an org pointing out when candidates (which include EAsian ones) don’t support the goals/requests of that org isn’t dismissing voices. Please realize that racism is not when a nonwhite person is criticized.