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HarperCollins Strike Update

For the full breakdown of what’s been going on since November, read here.

January 20, 2023

It’s been over FIFTY days. The strike is still ongoing. Harper has yet to even speak to the union.

Union members are still scraping on their second and third hustles (which most entry-level publishing people have) and donations to the strike fund. The union has set up a hardship fund (here’s the post about it on their official Instagram, for verification) so no more fiddling with checks or Venmo.

If you can donate, please do.

And whether you can or can’t, please do still share.

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Tyrus Reunion!  Josh and Luke got together today in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival.  Not far from where Andi Mack was filmed in Salt Lake City.

At the Egyptian Theatre in Park City on Jan. 21, 2023.

#andi mack #tyrus #joshua rush #luke mullen #cyrus goodman #tj kippen #sundance film festival

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Heartstopper Mini-Comic: A Very Special Day

Buy the books / About Heartstopper / Read on Tumblr / Read on Webtoon / Read on Tapas / Support on Patreon

Hey all! Been working on a little something to ease myself back into drawing Heartstopper pages. I’m so proud of this mini-comic! I hadn’t drawn proper comic pages for over six months and I’d been really worried that my drawing skills would have worsened in that time. But I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been with a mini-comic. Thanks for your support this year and I really hope you enjoy this little story.

#heartstopper #so cute #nick nelson #charlie spring #nick x charlie #narlie #nellie nelson

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JOE LOCKE AND KIT CONNOR | BRITISH GQ’S FIRST MEN OF THE YEAR 2022 COVER STARS

#men of the year #heartstopper #joe locke #kit connor #charlie spring #nick nelson #nick & charlie #nick x charlie #narlie

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This is what I was talking about.

This is exactly why the whole "Queer characters can only be played by queer actors" argument, or the queerbaiting celebrities argument is not only unhelpful, it is actively harmful. You are not entitled to other peoples identity. You are forcing people to come out in order to protect their careers, when they may not have wanted to share that with the world. Real people can not queerbait. Real people can not be bad representations of themselves. Do not conflate how you treat fictional characters with how you are allowed to treat real people. We can not keep having the same conversation. Forcing people to come out or else face social consequences is Bad. Always. Everytime.

In this case, Kit is literally a teenager who has been facing overwhelming amounts of online abuse for not being open about his personal identity.

Im seeing it with other queer media too. With nicholas galitzin and taylor zakhar perez in the red white & royal blue movie, people demanding that they should have been recast with "actual queer actors" despite the fact that we do not know if they are or are not queer. We can never know until they tell us that they are, which they have not.

Im also seeing it with young royals. With the new season coming out later today, the speculation on omar and edvins sexuality and relationship is incredibly harmful and toxic. They are real people, please treat them like people instead of fictional characters you can write rambling, speculating paragraphs about.

I'll say it one more time.

You are not entitled to other people's identities.

#wow #people seriously learn nothing

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did anyone actually read heartstopper??

#this^^^ #heartstopper #kit connor #alice oseman

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hey remember when Aled Last said "there's this idea that if you're not straight, you have to tell [people] immediately, like you owe it to them. but you don't. you don't have to do anything until you're ready" and Charlie Spring said "you didn't just force yourself because I'm out already?" and Tara Jones said "don't feel like you have to come out to anyone before you're ready" and Nick Nelson said "I'm not saying I want to have a public announcement, but I want to tell the people who matter" and when Geoff explained that Charlie getting outed was a trauma?

remember all that??

#what didn’t click with some of these ‘fans’? #heartstopper

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I hope you people that cry about “only queer actors should play queer characters” know that this is what happens when y’all do that. Because unless an actor CLEARLY LABELS THEMSELVES AS HETEROSEXUAL you do not know their sexuality. They are not “queerbaiting” because they choose to keep this part of themselves private. As long as people are staying respectful to the story they’re portraying, I do not see the issue with actors acting. A conversation about representation that started out so well has ended up being so toxic and dangerous.

Nobody owes you a damn thing. You bullied an 18 year old into coming out. Congratulations, you won. Was it worth it?

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alice you're amazing :)

#alice oseman #you tell em #heartstopper #hstwt #kit connor

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i wish everyone who made kit connor feel he had to come out a very merry FUCK YOU. you forced an eighteen year old into coming out publicly, before he was ready, when he stated many many times he wanted to keep it private. how many more times does this shit have to fucking happen before some of you fucking clock that YOU CANNOT QUEERBAIT IN REAL LIFE. this is the natural end to the discourse of ‘if somebody is in the public eye playing a queer person they owe us their sexuality’, and it’s DEEPLY FUCKED UP, they do NOT owe you an answer, and this mindset JUST FORCED AN EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD TO OUT HIMSELF BEFORE HE WAS READY TO

#kit connor #he deserves better than this #fuck everyone that put pressure on him

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new cast members just dropped

#heartstopper

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imagine playing a character who was given the grace and opportunity to explore his sexuality and getting the complete opposite treatment in real life, it’s such a shame and i wish nothing but the best for kit

#my thoughts exactly #this needs to stop #real people don’t queerbait #kit connor #cavetown #becky albertalli

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Hey! Just a reminder- when you tell a person who has never disclosed their sexuality publicly that they can’t play a queer character, YOU ARE THE ONE PERPETUATING HETERONORMATIVITY. You are the one saying that unless someone tells you they are gay they must be straight because straight is what is “default” or “normal”. People aren’t queer-baiting by not coming out. You are reinforcing a heteronormative culture by assuming that queer is “other” and must be stated. You might not know that someone is queer until they say it, and you also don’t know if someone is straight until they say so.

#all of this #kit connor

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on the outing of kit connor

can I just - 

the reason coming out is a thing - the whole reason we have a CONCEPT of coming out - are heteronormative social defaults. we live in a culture that assumes everyone is straight: that teaches us to assume, not only that everyone else is straight, but that we are straight, and which overwhelmingly, depending on context and location, either treats queerness as something external to the norm, something invisible and shameful, or something downright evil. and so we have a situation where, when you are queer in whatever way, coming out is never a one-and-done situation, because even if you’ve come out a hundred times in your life, strangers will continue to assume you’re cis and straight unless you tell them otherwise - which it may not always be safe to do, because of homophobia and transphobia. so out people, despite being out in whatever way, can still exist in this constant state of semi-closetedness, not because they want to, but because of the refusal of others to entertain the reality of their existence as a human default, rather than as a specialised exception to the norm. straightness and cisness can always be Assumed, says this logic, but queerness must be Proven: otherwise it cannot possibly exist.  

all this being so, when you demand that a real, human person discloses their sexuality to you before they’re ready? when you forcibly out someone? you’re contributing to the same heteronormative social defaults whose dominance you’re ostensibly using to justify Why Visible Queerness Matters, because what you’re really demanding is certainty, and the emphasis on certainty IS THE WHOLE GODDAMN PROBLEM. what you’re saying is, “I assume that everyone is straight until or unless they expressly confirm otherwise, because that’s the Correct Assumption. assuming that someone is queer, therefore, would be Incorrect, even if they’re signaling solidarity with and support for the queer community - even if they’re signaling queerness in other ways - because queerness isn’t allowed any ambiguity. I must be Certain of who is queer and who is Not, because it’s Wrong to assume a person isn’t straight” and I just.

[stares directly into the camera] really. really! who is it, I wonder, who taught you that it’s wrong to assume people aren’t straight? who told you that it’s potentially insulting to be thought of as queer, but NEVER insulting to be assumed straight? what social norms, I ask, imparted the idea that thinking of someone as queer is “imposing sexuality” on them (negative), whereas thinking of them as straight is Perfectly Normal? do you think, perhaps, that continually assuming everyone is straight to the point where you demand a public, notarised Admission Of Queerness to be exempted from that assumption maybe serves to further entrench the idea of Straight As Default, thereby creating a more hostile and less accepting environment for queer people? has it occurred to you that, if you respond with derision and hostility to anyone who (for instance) plays with gender presentation through fashion, evokes a queer aesthetic or otherwise says Fuck You to presenting as cishet without expressly confirming their queerness, you are making it HARDER for queer people to exist safely in public, to say nothing of shoring up toxic, shitty gender binaries for cishet people?

does the entertainment industry have a historical problem re: casting straight people in queer roles and praising their performances while simultaneously refusing to cast queer people in those roles because “it wouldn’t be acting”? YES. is this some homophobic bullshit? YES. does hollywood, despite its supposed status as a liberal bastion, still have a huge fucking problem with homophobia and treating out actors and other out creatives like shit? YES. 

is any of this improved by forcing queer actors to out themselves, the better to feel comforted that a FICTIONAL queer person isn’t being “disrespected” by a real human actor, or whatever the fuck other justification you’d care to run with? NO. NO IT FUCKING ISN’T. 

does forcing people to out themselves increase the lack of safety queer people feel and experience within an already homophobic industry? IT SURE FUCKING DOES. 

all of you go to your godamned rooms and think about what you’ve done

#kit connor #outing #coming out #cishet defaults

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damn y’all really missed the entire point of heartstopper

#heartstopper #kit connor

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friendly reminder:

it’s okay to be unlabeled in the LGBTQ+ community

it’s okay to use a label in the past that might not fit you anymore

it’s okay to use a label now that might not fit you

it’s okay to not be willing to come out

it’s okay to not know who you are yet

it’s okay to be queer and not let people know about it

you DO NOT have to be out in order to be valid in your sexuality

unfriendly reminder:

*only specifically to the people who think you need to come out in order to be valid

no you don’t

please be quiet

forcing people to come out before they are ready (especially a kid) is very wrong and you should not do it

#all of this #heartstopper #kit connor

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THAT'S NOT WHAT QUEERBAITING MEANS.

I can't explain how annoying it is when people accuse people of queerbaiting over their own sexuality.

Queerbaiting is specifically about when content is marketed as queer and then has no queer rep at all. Not when someone just doesn't want to tell you if they're queer or not. Urghhh.

I hope Kit Connor is doing okay

#heartstopper #kit connor