#and it sucks too cause all the other big companies have the same cowardice. not as much as disney

[drabbles-of-writing]

my mom’s a disney stan, like, the brand. so she uses lumity as an example on why disney is “so cool and accepting!”. meanwhile, i’m sitting here thinking about toh s3 being cut in half

anon i am so sorry for you

anyway, fuck disney for being supposedly 'progressive' despite the fact that hundreds of other creators had to fight for this rep long before them so this could even be considered, including Alex Hirsch, who had any of the rep he wanted FUCKED over by the rat. Despite the fact that Dana had assured that the higher ups in disney were cool with letting this 'slide' this time, only to have S3 cut short the second lumity showed signs of becoming legit. Despite the fact that subtitles for Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Hooty's Door on Disney+ misgender Raine. Despite the fact the Owl House is shown to be so immensely popular and loved that most disney execs would be frothing at the mouth for new content of it to get more money, but that's suspiciously not happening.

Disney has never once cared about progression or the community, they are perfectly content with the same cookie cutter characters for everything that has their name on it, in fear they piss off the 20 Karen moms and miss out on 20$. fuck disney.

#no ill will towards your mom anon i just wanted to rant #the owl house #toh #disney #disney+ #alex hirsch #dana terrace #rant #lgbt #lgbt representation #on the misgendering. raine is not verbally misgendered in the official episode (thank god) #but the subtitles on the very last line of eda confronting herself during the breakup misgender them #i believe dana is currently trying to get it fixed but the fact it happened at all. raine isnt misgendered anywhere else #just the one line after its confirmed they were breaking up. which i realize i could be jumping to conclusions here but hey. suspicious #asks #and it sucks too cause all the other big companies have the same cowardice. not as much as disney #but netflix cancels any good shows. cartoon network is Like That. hulu is slowly melding into the mouse. nobody uses hbo max #again. stream disney+ so we can keep yelling at disney to put more of this out. i stg we gotta bully the mouse and then never buy anything #else from them

[pendragonfics]

Cowardice & Bad Timing

Paring: Armitage Hux/Reader

Tags: female reader (but can be read as a gender neutral reader), flower shop AU, tattoo parlour AU, modern era, flowers, fluff.

Summary: Reader works at a florists, and one day across the road in the abandoned warehouses, a small tattoo parlour opens, bringing the skilled Armitage Hux into the picture, and the heart of the Reader.

Word Count: 1,501

Posting Date:  2017-01-10

Current Date: 2017-06-01

Flowers had always been your thing. Your father always brought your mother a bouquet every Monday, their blooms lasting a ripe fortnight. They were never the same arrangement of blossoms; roses and chrysanthemums, small poppies and daisies. Whatever they were for, an apology, an anniversary, they brought a smile to your mother's lips, and, thus, to yours too. When your father passed on, and left his father's florist store, Hosnian Harmony, all to you to inherit, to work in, to practically live your little life out of.

And it was a lovely little life; you met brides-to-be who worked out their arrangements for tables, nosegays for the bridesmaids, you had boyfriends and girlfriends rushing in for apologetic eyes and their regular order for their regular posies, the odd wanderer who bought flowers for their smell, the need for a centrepiece upon their dining tables at home. You met strange people, and never had a customer who was disgruntled; maybe it was because everyone who came in for flowers came out with flowers, and there was nothing bad about gorgeous blooms and better service.

Across the road in recent times, a tattooist had moved into the abandoned warehouse, renovated into apartments upstairs and industrial-like stores below. It was quite a sight to see, but from the front of your store, it was almost an eyesore with all the glaring metal and concrete aesthetic.

In that store, worked the famed artist Armitage Hux, and his hipster associates Phasma (an ex-drummer from a big name punk band), and the black-clad Kylo Ren, who only worked evening shifts to fit with his metal-head convictions. Not that you really paid them any heed - perhaps you knew the three main tattooists because their receptionist, Dopheld often came in for gossip and bunches of flowers for his poorly mother. He came often; you heard much about Kylo's aggressive history, and affinity for being the one to go to for tattoo sleeves, and of Phasma's no-crap attitude, and love for English Mastiffs. He also talked of Hux, never by his given name, but that he was a hard-headed, driven man, came from rich roots, and explored the world for more meaning in life than dosh and girls painted like dolls and sold off to marry.

By the way you heard of Armitage Hux from Mr. Mitaka, you almost felt sorry for him. You couldn't imagine coming from a home where you had every single thing you wanted, except freedom; you always explored as a child, often falling off bicycles and backwards off roller-skates, bruised and loved, covered in floral band-aids since day one.

It was a slow Wednesday afternoon with three hours until closing time when the bell to the door rang. You expected it to be a weepy friend coming for a few flowers for a funeral, or maybe the delivery of cellophane you were waiting on. Not the ginger crop with a shaved underside and a sleeve down his arm to come in. Unlike the other times you had seen Armitage Hux, he wore thick glasses, and smelt faintly of a cigarette he had politely snuffed out before entering, and walked like he owned your property and knew it. But unlike the time his associate Kylo Ren had wandered drunkenly in, you didn't spray him in the face with pepper spray, and you most certainly did not scream blue murder.

You only spoke it.

"I don't care for the trouble you bring over my threshold, Mr. Hux," you warn, arms crossed. It was hard to look as tough as he did in his hot goth clothes when you were practically surrounded in flowers and bright, cutesy colours. "Or...are you here to browse?" You dared to hope. A man who was built on becoming something more than his military father had foisted onto him, buying flowers?

He shook his head. "No, I'm - I'm just looking." He stammered, a gorgeous accent tumbling from his lips. "I was going to ask if you'd mind if I practised drawing flowers for a while, a patron of mine wants a - a - erm, it's a yellow flower..."

"Dandelions? Sunflowers?" You wondered, un-crossing your arms, eyes narrowed, deep in the act of brainstorming, overthinking. "Daffodils?"

He nodded. "Yeah, that one. And I thought you might have one...you know, since you're a flower shop..." he grinned, a lopsided thing which made you wonder if it worked on everyone he met.

You sigh. "You're lucky its in season, Mr. Hux, it's a winter flower." You turn to the isle beside where he stands, and produce the tub which is bursting with the pop of yellow colour. The side of his mouth quirks up, an almost-smile, but instead of it taking over his stern face, he sighs.

"Please call me Armitage," he wipes a hand over his face, glancing up as if to the heavens. "My father was Mr. Hux, and he wasn't a hero for me in the slightest." He corrects you, and motions to the tub. "Would you mind it if I just...sat in to practice? I don't know what I'd do if I had a bunch of flowers."

You bob your head, placing the tub upon the top of a small table by the window, where glorious sunlight filtered through the glass. "No problem, Armitage." you place your hands upon your hips akimbo, head tilted, wistful. "If not knowing what to do with a bunch of flowers is the height of your problems, I'm sure they aren't problems but issues." You give him a bright smile, the Hosnian Harmony special, and leave him to sketch.

---

It's every few days for three months when you hear the bell ringing at three hours to closing, see the bright eyes of Armitage Hux, the tattoo collection upon his bare arms growing with every passing week, new ink to cause your eyes to roam around his lithe form. Perhaps yes, you were the small-town florist who worked their ass off to make every bouquet the best the patron had every laid eyes and fingers upon. Perhaps, yes, he was the son of a big businessman who intended him to be the next Wall Street wolf, but found comfort around the buzzing of tattoo needles, the company of those covered in pictures of their life, their love. But what you felt inside after the months, that wasn't admiration for Armitage from breaking away from the crowd, or the fact that he was a fantastic singer, no. 

You'd fallen for him. 

It was another Wednesday when the visit was unlike the rest of them; his head was lowered, pencil and thick art diary, bursting with designs low at his side. The way he gazed at you wrought your heart, wrenching the strings.  

"My boss, Mr. Snoke noticed I'm taking too much time to draw pretty things on paper than on skin," he starts off, unable to meet your eyes. Your hands grew still over the arrangement you were placing together, slowly falling to the bench to rest. You'd feared for this day; the day that brought tidings darker than a Queen of Night tulip, a deep purple pansy. "I - ________, I can't come here to draw anymore."

You shake your head. "Just because a superior - come after hours!" you burst, the words tumbling from your words like a dam shattering. "I mean - the client of yours, they probably don't want a half-assed flower on their arm, do they?" you amend.

Armitage gives you a weak smile. "I can't believe you thought I had a client who liked flowers," his words are almost a breath, faint, you almost missed them with the noises from the outside world playing atop. "_______, as soon as we came across the street, I fell for you. I know - it's really unprofessional of me, and I've never spent three months chasing romance, but you're unlike anyone I've met before -,"

Your heart felt like it was faster than any time ever in your life, yet still, dormant at once. At once, you throw yourself around the counter, and into the picture-clad arms of Armitage Hux, gripping him closer to you than you'd ever held another living being. 

"Just say you like me," you whisper into his ear, a grin wide upon your lips. 

He laughs, withdrawing from the embrace. His eyes are alive, bright and beautiful, and he is too, and for once, you think of how much cowardice and bad timing it took to get to this point, to be in his arms, to feel his heartbeat under the skin close to your own, and for once, you reconsider if flowers are your thing. Because right now, you have a thing for Armitage; all of Armitage. 

"I like you, ________, of Hosnian Harmony," he beams, laying a kiss upon your lips, nearly sucking the air from your lungs. "Perhaps now I have a better excuse to come over to see you." 

You smirk, kissing back. "Any excuse to see you is perfectly good."

#brendol hux #armitage hux #general hux #hux #hux x reader #armitage hux x reader #armitage hux/reader #star wars fanfic #star wars x reader #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #gender neutral reader #Female reader

[marymosley]

“I’ma Stab You”: Connecticut Woman Fired Over Pro-Black Lives Matter TikTok Video

YouTube Screenshot

We have been discussing the free speech issues raised by efforts to terminate professors who criticize the Black Live Matter Movement or aspects of the protests following the killing of George Floyd.  However, there is another such controversy with the inverse fact patter.  Claira Janover has been fired as as an “incoming government and public business service analyst” at Deloitte after posting a video that suggested that she would stab people who said “all lives matter.”  Yesterday, we discussed a dean at the University of Massachusetts who says that she was fired for using such a line in an email. Ironically, Janover shows the same intolerance for anyone with an opposing view, but the case still raises some of the same free speech issues that we have previously discussed, including the punishment of individuals for their social media postings.

Janover just started the job after graduating from Harvard University but was fired after her TikTok video where she lashed out at anyone who tells her that “all lives matter.”  She attacked anyone with “the nerve, the sheer entitled Caucasity to say, ‘all lives matter.’ . . . I’ma stab you. I’ma stab you, and while you’re struggling and bleeding out, I’ma show you my paper cut and say, ‘My cut matters, too’”

She posted that video and later returned to social media to lash out at her termination.

Janover insists that  the clip was “clearly” an “analogous joke,” and noted a message with it explicitly stating: “For legal reasons this is a joke.”

I did not see the message but I honestly took the video as a poor joke.  We have seen other such jokes go awry. Indeed, while such jokes can often receive strikingly different treatment from universities and employers depending on who is the butt of the joke.   would prefer a more tolerant approach that is not dependent on the content of such a posting.

For years, we have discussed the free speech concerns as private and public employers punish workers for their statements or actions in their private lives. We have addressed an array of such incidents, including social media controversies involving academics. In some cases, racially charged comments have been treated as free speech while in others they have resulted in discipline or termination. It is that lack of a consistent standard that has magnified free speech concerns.  We have previously discussed the issue of when it is appropriate to punishment people for conduct outside of the work place. We have followed cases where people have been fired after boorish or insulting conduct once their names and employers are made known. (here and here and here and here and here and here).

Janover has been mocked for saying that she fear being “murdered” and added “Apparently I’m threatening the lives of people — unlike cops, obviously.”

Janover seemed to careen from the defense to the attack, hitting her company on social media: “I’m sorry, Deloitte, that you can’t see that. That you were cowardice [sic] enough to fight somebody who’s going to make an indelible change in the world and is going to have an impact.” That would certainly rule out any reconciliation with the employer.  She also lashed out at Trump supporters: “I’m too strong for you. I’m too strong for any of you ‘All Lives Matter,’ racist Trump supporters. It sucks. But it doesn’t suck as much as systemic racism. And I’m not going to stop using my platform to advocate for it.”

The question however remains the same.  Does it matter if you believe (as I do) that this was meant as a dumb joke?  It should.  She made no connection to the company. That was done, yet again, by critics who wanted her fired.

I have previously raised my concern that the greatest threat to free speech values may be coming from “Little Brother” rather than “Big Brother.”  This comes in the form of private censorship of social media but also punishment by companies for statements on social media.  The result is a type of fishbowl society for free speech as everyone feels that they are being monitored for any controversial pictures or statements.  The result is chilling for those, like Janover, who want to speak out on political causes like Black Lives Matter.  One can certainly criticize her for her rhetoric and even her views but there is no reason why her personal views should be viewed as material to their work at Deloitte.

The controversy also shows the hypocrisy of many in these controversies, including Janover.  Those who fostered intolerance for opposing views are the first to demand tolerance for their own views. Those who criticize the “cancel culture” are the first to try to cancel others.  I fear that the loser in all of this will be free speech and the sense of freedom to engage others on social media or public forums.

    “I’ma Stab You”: Connecticut Woman Fired Over Pro-Black Lives Matter TikTok Video published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/