#for things like racism sexism and foul language

[h0neybunches0fh0es]

Crazy concept I know but maybe if you’re a bored middle aged white woman you could try not harassing your 10th graders teacher about having her class read of mice and men to the point that she’s fighting off panic attacks and losing sleep. It’s like really easy not to do that.

#y’all she gave them a MONTHS notice that they were going to be reading this book #now they’re making fucking Facebook posts about how it’s inappropriate #and how it should be banned #for things like racism sexism and foul language #and how it paints mentally ill people in a bad light #meanwhile the teacher is a biracial woman with debilitating anxiety #who is pairing it with informational texts about women’s rights and the civil rights movement #so idk maybe shut the fuck up and be more involved from the get go #rather than waiting until halfway through the book to throw a god damn fit #oops sorry i forgot god damn was one of the naughty words your evil little incel 15 year old can’t be exposed to #FUCK OFFFFFFFF

[phantasmalnightmare]

Le Rules

1)Patience is a must. I work two jobs, 50+ hours a week, and am prone to bouts of depression, so don’t pester me for replies. I’m typically slow with things. If you are a fast paced RP blog that drops threads when people take too long to reply, please don’t bother wasting my time starting something.

2) This is a multi-ship blog. I’m pretty open to ships, but they have to feel natural and build up to it. I’m also not against doing smut, but it’s the same sort of deal. 

3) This blog is strictly 18+ and is extremely trigger heavy. It may contain sex, gore, violence, torture, lots of foul language, and other dark themes. Please let me know if you have any triggers so I can tag them, otherwise I generally don’t.

 4) I’m fluid with length, but I can’t do one liners. It’s not enough for me to go off of. That being said, I don’t mind if you don’t keep up with my length at all, as long as you give me a paragraph.

 5) This blog is mutuals only. I'm fairly selective because I have so little time to write(especially with ocs), so if I don't follow back within a few days, you should assume that I don't have time to write with you at this time. Likewise, if you don't follow back or respond in anyway when I follow you, I'll assume you don't want to write with me, and unfollow after a week.

6)  Absolutely no drama is tolerated. Call-outs will be ignored. I’m not going to take the time to read five pages of both sides and figure out who is in the wrong. I’m an adult, long since out of highschool. Nor do I take kindly to people telling me who I can and cannot follow. This is my blog. Have a problem with someone? Just block them and move on. I will ignore drama and take no one’s side. Blogs that try and tell me who I cannot follow, or who try to drag me into it, will be soft blocked.

7) No homophobia, racism, sexism, or any kind of discrimination allowed.

8) Replies always come in order, except if we have multiple threads. I will try and give everyone replies, before getting to secondary threads. I’m very OCD and wanna be fair to everyone. I also always have muse for all of my muses.

9) Starter Calls: I will post them rarely since I’m very busy. If you like a starter call you need to specify both mine and your muse(if you’re a multi muse blog), otherwise I won’t do it. I hate it when people waste my time, so if you like it, I expect you’re serious about RPing with me. If I write you a starter and you don’t reply within a month, I will take it that you wasted my time, and I will hard block you. So don’t like a starter call if you aren’t serious in the first place. That being said, please, if you don’t like my starter, talk to me. I don’t mind changing it.

That’s all I’ve got. Follow these and we’ll get along just fine!

#rules #rp rules

[rebelcourtesan]

Animation got Slammed at the Oscars

Other than Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, it seems that animation itself got insulted for being for kids only. Let me correct these celebrities on a few things about animation. Like comics, novels, live action television or film, it's a medium of story telling that isn't for children only!

Here's a few examples . . .

Part of Vivzipop's Hellaverse, a group of imps take on jobs from the damned of Hell to assassinate living humans in the Living World.

Why is this not for children? Well, firstly most of it takes place in Hell. Foul language, heavy sexual innuendos, not to mention blood and gore.

Also, it handles heavy adult topics such as relationships issues, loneliness, self-hate, suicide, nihilism, drug abuse, and infidelity.

The Princess of Hell opens a hotel to redeem damned sinners.

This long awaited series only has a pilot, a MV, and a couple of comics out. Set in the same universe (Hellaverse) as Helluva Boss.

Why isn't this for children? Foul language, heavy sexual innuendos, prostitution, sexual abuse, genocide, drug addiction, the stress of the porn industry, cannibalism, blood and gore. There are sure to be more added to this list when the series finally arrives.

Aging celebrity Bojack Horseman tries to reclaim his place in Hollywood and treads the footfalls of fame.

Where do I start? This series tackles some pretty heavy issues. Let's see . . .

Alcoholism, drug addiction, death, suicide, depression, narcissism, Hollywood politics, assaulting women, trauma, history of child abuse.

If the people bashing animation at the Oscars, I wonder if they would let their children watch Bojack Horseman? Hmm?

The son of a renown superhero finally grows into his powers and follows into his father's footsteps into becoming a hero.

Yep, this is about superheroes, but with a brutal twist as nothing is as it seems in this series.

Blood and gore abound, betrayal, abuse, and everything you wouldn't see in your typical superhero show for kids.

Wow, this must certainly be for children. A caveman and his pet dinosaur exploring the world together and going on adventures . . .if you ignore the rampant blood and gore . . .not to mention the leading character Spear witnesses his wife and children being devoured by dinosaurs, thus experiencing loss and grief.

Morty goes on interdimensional adventures with his grandfather Rick!

Do I even need to say anything? Here we go . . .abuse, nihilism, foul language, sexual content, depression, suicide.

Oh, and let's not forget when Morty was almost sexually assaulted by a jellybean in the men's restroom.

Frank tries to be the man of his dysfunctional family while trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

This gem is chock full of foul language, family dysfunction, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, bullying, sexual harassment, assault, blood and gore, racism, and sexism.

Kinda not for children.

Two sisters are separated by tragedy and come together from opposites sides of a conflict between two factions.

Let's see . . .war, trauma, mental health, betrayal, blood and violence, terrorism, political corruption, and death.

Retsuko works in an office and has hijinks with her co-workers and daily life.

While the art style is cutesy, there's a reason why this show is so relatable for working women. Sexism, work stress, relationship problems, marriage, PTSD, assault, harassment, stalking, and corruption.

There are scenes in the third season that would frighten small children as there is a violent scene where a stalker attempts to assault the leading character.

Princess Bean resists her arrange marriage and runs away with her friends, Elfo, a naïve elf, and Luci, a demon, to have adventures and hijinks.

While created by the same people who created the Simpsons, this is more 'adult' than the Simpsons. Alcoholism, grief, betrayal, blood and gore, evil and good.

Good grief, I could go on and on about the different animated shows meant for adults only. To say animation is for children only is not only ignorant, but downright insulting for Hollywood animators, studios, and independent animations studios.

#adult animation #academy awards

[phantasmalcalamity-a]

1) I’m in no way looking for a relationship in RL. If we ship our characters, that’s fine and good, but don’t get our relationship confused for RL.

2)Patience is a must. I work full time and am prone to bouts of depression, so don’t pester me for replies. I’m typically slow with things. If you are a fast paced RP blog that drops threads when people take too long to reply, please don’t bother wasting my time starting something.

3) This is a multi-ship blog. I’m pretty open to ships, but they have to feel natural and build up to it. I’m also not against doing smut, but it’s the same sort of deal. 

4) This blog is strictly 18+(mun is 30) and is extremely trigger heavy. It may contain sex, gore, violence, torture, lots of foul language, and other dark themes. Please let me know if you have any triggers so I can tag them, otherwise I generally don’t.

- I have two triggers. Brain damage and hospice death.

 5) I’m fluid with length, but I can’t do one liners. It’s not enough for me to go off of. That being said, I don’t mind if you don’t keep up with my length at all, as long as you give me a paragraph.

 6) This blog is mutuals only, unless you message me saying you want to rp but wanna keep your dash clean, or follow back on a main blog. I’m not super picky about following back, but if you don’t follow me back, I’ll assume you don’t care to write with me, and I’ll unfollow after a week of nothing in return. 

7)  Absolutely no drama is tolerated. Call-outs will be ignored. I’m not going to take the time to read five pages of both sides and figure out who is in the wrong. I’m an adult, long since out of highschool. Nor do I take kindly to people telling me who I can and cannot follow. This is my blog. Have a problem with someone? Just block them and move on. I will ignore drama and take no one's side. Blogs that try and tell me who I cannot follow, or who try to drag me into it, will be soft blocked.

8) No homophobia, racism, sexism, or any kind of discrimination allowed.

10) Replies always come in order. I’m very OCD and wanna be fair to everyone. I also always have muse for all of my muses.

11) Starter Calls: I will post them rarely since I’m very busy. If you like a starter call you need to specify both mine and your muse(if you’re a multi muse blog), otherwise I won’t do it. I hate it when people waste my time, so if you like it, I expect you’re serious about RPing with me. If I write you a starter and you don’t reply within a month, I will take it that you wasted my time, and I will hard block you. So don’t like a starter call if you aren’t serious in the first place. That being said, please, if you don’t like my starter, talk to me. I don’t mind changing it.

That’s all I’ve got. Follow these and we’ll get along just fine!

#Rules #Moving these here #Don't mind me

[brooklynislandgirl]

Munday Maturity Boundaries

REPOST, don’t REBLOG. Bold what applies. Italics for references only. This meme contains triggering content!

Mun is comfortable with exploring / writing the following topics:

[bad language] [mild]:  damn, ass, crap, piss, etc. [moderate]:  shit, bastard, dick, hell, etc. [intense]:  fuck, cunt, motherfucker, etc. {Beth does not use foul language if she can avoid it, but I curse like a sailor so good luck}

[violence] [mild]:  cartoon violence, blasts, punches, bruises, etc. [moderate]:  weapons, cuts, gunshots, blood, etc. [intense]:  murder, gore, eye gore, torture, etc. {all of the above, for I am not a delicate flower}

[addiction] [mild]:  alcohol, tobacco, etc. [moderate]:  weed, pills, gambling, etc. [intense]:  needles, etc. {Beth drinks, her brother is an alcoholic and self-medicates with tobacco and marijuana. She is a nurse and these things are part of her world}

[abuse] toxic relationships, cheating, physical abuse, emotional abuse, abandonment, manipulation, references to sexual abuse, etc. {all of the above must be discussed mun-to-mun before it makes its appearance, but is open for discussion}

[discrimination] racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, etc. {all of the above must be discussed mun-to-mun before it makes its appearance, but is open for discussion}

[mental health] [mild]:  general discussion, clear symptoms, angst, etc. [moderate]:  bad episodes, spirals, trauma responses, self harm, etc. [intense]:  anything pertaining to suicide {all of the above must be discussed mun-to-mun before it makes its appearance, but is open for discussion. Beth does suffer from rapid cycling bi-polar disorder, self harms on occasion but for reasons other than mental health, and has/sometimes still does have suicidal ideation.}

stolen from @mynameisanakin

#So everything would be bolded and I am too lazy to do that. #mental health tw #abuse tw #drugs tw #alcohol tw

[rpbetter]

Hey there, check out this pinned post first!

Thanks for visiting Roleplay Better, where I believe that you can fucking do better! That kind of language, however, is why it is important for you to read this post before proceeding.

This blog and its posts are meant for an adult RPing audience; be over legal, adult age in the USA, 18+. Do not interact by submitting, asking, reblogging, commenting, or liking unless you are over eighteen years of age. By interacting with RPB or me, Vespertine, you are assumed to be following this rule. If you are breaking this rule, you will be blocked.

I have that rule because this blog can/will/does address topics inappropriate for a younger audience. Those can include, but are not limited to:

not safe for work - violence, injury, sexual language, smut, substance use

“dark topics” and themes like violence, unhealthy relationships, mental illness, trauma, graphic injury, dubious consent, substance use, and so forth addressed realistically

foul, sexual, and otherwise “Adult” language

 unpopular opinions and approaches about writing, RP, fandoms

“negativity” since literally anything can be, and my whole point here isn’t about holding back; it is likely that, at some point, in some post or another, a shoe will fit you-you need to be mature enough to handle that without taking it as a personal attack on you

images and links that may contain things inappropriate for a younger audience

this blog is founded upon the idea that fiction has reflections in reality, but that fiction does not utterly equate to reality. You should write with realism, your characters should be people in their own right, and you should absolutely be addressing many popular topics responsibly, which is to say realistically. I do not support or otherwise condone purity culture, so while realism is a big deal here, fiction = reality arguments are a no

seriously, you have no idea how fucking salty I am! I try to be fair, reasonable, and mellow with everyone, but it can and does come out.

This blog tags for common, major triggers, but it is not for those easily triggered or particularly sensitive. By proceeding, you take responsibility for yourself...like a mature adult. I expect you to utilize blacklist, unfollow, and block. Tag format is simple, it is literally just the word in most cases, with “cw” and “tw” added to particularly common things. Example, a post containing a breakdown of forms of dubcon will be tagged #dubcon #dubious consent. If that was specifically of a sexual nature, since tumblr is unfriendly to using Not Safe For Work now, I will be using #notsafe for sexual topics. In the event that this needs to change, it will be posted about, the previous tag left intact, so that you may update your blacklist.

You are always welcome to send me an ask or private message requesting a particular trigger be tagged for you. I try to check blogs I see following, especially if I follow back, so that I can tag what you require. However, I’m a person, I’m an ND, ill, busy person though, I do make mistakes!

If you find yourself desirous of telling me to tag in a hateful way, don’t. You will not be responded to with an apology and kindness. Do not be rude, it’s uncalled for when informing someone of a problem or making a request.

I will run the blog largely on a queue, and will not be following many people back. This is not personal! I just like to try to provide content at many different times, have a life elsewhere, and I am so happy that you love your fandom, but it might not be something I’ve enough interest in to have on my dash.

Don’t tumblr message me. Use the inbox or submit.

Due to recent events, I am changing this rule. It’s hard for me to receive messages unexpectedly, and I hate to imply that I’ll be able to get to these quicker because it isn’t the truth. Quicker, better responses come from the inbox. However, there have been too many incidents lately in which people needed to speak privately and had to make that a request. If you’re having a problem and need to vent, request sensitive advice, etc.? It’s alright, go ahead and drop me a PM, y’all. I’ll get back to you as soon as I am able. Please, do not be angry with me if I respond to inbox things or my queue is running! You’re important to me, I just might not have the requisite social cognition and energy you deserve at that time.

Aggressive inbox messages will be responded to in kind. I don’t care if you are on anon or not, if you haven’t an ounce of polite communication skills, I won’t have them either. This is not a “we don’t publish anon hate” blog.

I highly encourage asks and submissions on any and all RP topics, and it’s perfectly alright to be salty as fuck in them, you can totally vent here, but don’t take out your frustration on me or be demanding of me. I am always happy to help with information, advice, or just a response to your venting-it’s important to know someone is listening. However, it may take me a few days to a week to get to you, be patient. 

If you are going to vent, leave out usernames. This isn’t a callout or burnbook blog. It’s fine to state characters and fandoms, but if this becomes a problem, it’ll have to change. I don’t want this becoming a salt blog for one or two fandoms I very likely can’t even stand. Practice the fine art of alluding to things, its good experience for your writing! Besides, RPC problems are RPC problems, I promise. It might feel like it’s just your fandom, but there is something relatable in all corners.

I will not overly police comments. Keep the slurs and shit out of it, though. If there is an issue going on pertaining to a serious instance of hate speech, or behavior I, personally, deem as too inappropriate and/or immature to be taking place on my post, I will step in. Otherwise, I expect everyone to be adults in the comments and reblogs too. If you want to argue with each other, that’s your business. If you want to argue with me, I’m not sorry in advance.

Addition to the above: this is not a blog in which it will be tolerated that commentators or those submitting with the URLS are targeted for callouts, shaming, or other instances of bullying. No, I cannot make those people stop bothering you by blocking them, but the least I can do is address that by shutting down their access to this blog and it’s posts by blocking on the URLs I have for them. And I will. Fuck that “we can’t be responsible for” shit. It’s my blog, it’s my content I’m putting out there, I’m not going to just ignore shit like what went down over on COAR, thanks. Not. Cool.

This is definitely not a place for:

people who think giving muses labels, including top/bottom “dynamics,” is a good substitute for character traits, personality, and development

those with no reading comprehension skills

folks dependent upon aesthetics and aesthetics-based purple prose as filler for actual writing

anti-original character/just wants to fuck a FC or canon character club, get the fuck out immediately

y’all who see writing as an obstacle to getting down to action, be that smut, drama, or fight scenes...it’s literally a writing hobby

politics, any manner of phobe or ism, violent/non-inclusive feminists, purity/rpc/fandom/content police of any manner, and exactly any manner of racism, sexism, or religious intolerance - I give not a shit if it’s popular to hate the straights, for example, I neither believe in nor tolerate reactionary classifying of any group as blanket-statement evil

people who are going to tack onto my posts shit like, “it’s okay, OP, you can say x character.” Trust me, if I were talking about one character, I fucking would name drop them, don’t bring me into your fandom drama, I doubt I know or want to know who that anime guy is who looks like 12 other anime guys to me.

About Vespertine

You can call me that, Vespertine. I’d rather you didn’t go with Vesper, but as it is unfortunately so likely to happen, I won’t feed you to the dogs over it either. RPB Mun is also acceptable.

I’m alright with either she/her or he/him, they/them is also fine. Apparently, that was big enough clue-in for the poor reading comp crowd, so while I feel it is not of importance, I’m nonbinary, yes.

Late 30′s, chronically ill but still working adult with neurodivergence. I’m both busy and Busy, and always sick. This limits my brain power and ability to be here. I have an active RP blog that I won’t be sharing to keep responsible distance. That is always going to be my priority, it is my primary hobby.

Please, don’t tumblr message me totally random things if we don’t have that kind of relationship! I’m too ill and busy, and it really fucks my nerves to have a bunch of messages/have to suddenly interact socially with people. Don’t do it. Use my inbox, use the submit, comment on posts. I cannot do random messages of “hey” and so forth.

I only do written RP, don’t expect me to understand much of anything from tabletop. I’ve RPed for the last 23 years consistently, on every platform from AOL chats to forums to messengers and here. I also don’t do RP in discord, so I’m sorry, but I can’t advise you much on anything with a word count, except to stop it for serious RP. Other than that, I promise you that I’ve seen the trends, the drama, the fandoms. I can give a lot of advice and perspective on a wide range of topics, situations, and characters! When I don’t have a clue at all, I’ll try to do enough research to give you an answer.

Do I come off as a horrible, strict asshole? I do! I’m not going to say that I am just a shy bean who is more scared of you than you are me. I’m not. I’m honestly feral, but have common decency, compassion, and sense. All of which are lacking in the general RPC. So, if you can inbox/common/otherwise interact with anyone else on this site, you can totally handle me!

Honesty and openness are policies.

And in the spirit of that, I repeat; you can fucking do better, tumblr RPC!

#pinned post #tumblr rpc #rph #rp help #rp advice #rpbetter

[schraubd]

The Problem With Canaries

A group of pro-Israel, anti-BDS students at a variety of college campuses issued a statement harshly criticizing the Canary Mission for hindering their efforts on campus and unjustly maligning fellow students. They wrote:

Canary Mission is an anonymous site that blacklists individuals and professors across the country for their support of the BDS movement, presumed anti-Semitic remarks and hateful rhetoric against Israel and the United States. 

As a group of conscientious students on the front lines fighting BDS on our campuses, we are compelled to speak out against this website because it uses intimidation tactics, is antithetical to our democratic and Jewish values, is counterproductive to our efforts and is morally reprehensible. 

This blacklist aggregates public information about students across the country under the guise of combating anti-Semitism. It highlights their LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pictures, old tweets, quotes in newspapers and YouTube videos. The site chronicles each student’s involvement with pro-Palestinian causes and names other students and organizations with whom the given student may be affiliated. 

We view much of the rhetoric employed to villainize these individuals as hateful and, in some cases, Islamophobic and racist. In addition, Canary Mission’s wide scope wrongfully equates supporting a BDS resolution with some of the most virulent expressions of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rhetoric and activity.

The ADL initially supported the students, referring to Canary as "Islamophobic & racist". Critics quickly contested what, exactly, Canary did that was "Islamophobic & racist", and a day later the ADL backed off, apologizing for "overly broad" language. I want to talk through why I think objections to Canary as Islamophobic are potentially justified. But I want to do so in what I think is a more nuanced and specified way, because there really are interesting questions here regarding the ethics of counter-antisemitism (or counter-racism, or counter-Islamophobic) discourse that I think are being elided in the usual rush to back our friends and lambaste our enemies. Let's stipulate for sake of argument that Canary doesn't use specifically Islamophobic rhetoric (in the form of racial slurs, conspiratorial claims about creeping Sharia, and the like), and that in general the factual claims they make about the targeted persons (that they did say X or join group Y) are factually accurate. I'm open to the possibility that they do use such rhetoric or that their claims aren't factual (in which case the argument that they're Islamophobic becomes trivially easy). But I make the stipulation because the case I'm going to make doesn't depend on any such behavior by Canary. Instead, let's focus on what we might think of as Canary's strongest possible foundation: factual revelations of things the profiled individual has definitely said, or groups they have definitely joined, absent any additional commentary. Again, I'm not saying that this is, in fact, all or even most of what Canary does -- I'm saying that this sort of thing would presumably represents the formulation of Canary's mission that would be most resistant to a claim of Islamophobia. So. First, I do not generally think it is a smear or otherwise wrongful to simply republish a terrible thing somebody has said (with appropriate caveats about not taking things out-of-context, omitting apologies, etc.). For example, the other day Seth Mandel accused me of a "smear" and a "lie" towards him in the context of my column on sexist responses to Natalie Portman not attending to the Genesis Prize. The irony of Mandel's complaint was that he was actually never mentioned in the column at all; he only appears in the context of two of his tweets being republished, verbatim, with no additional commentary or interpretation directed towards him whatsoever. If you can be "smeared" simply by quoting your own words back to you, then I suggest that the problem lies inward. Moreover, I'd suggest that there actually is something important about revealing the prevalence of antisemitism that exists amidst certain social movements (on campus or not) -- if only because Jews are so frequently gaslit on this subject. Just this week, the Interfaith Center at Stony Brook University had to release a statement (cosigned by a wide range of campus Jewish, Christian, and Muslim groups) in solidarity with campus Hillel after a campus SJP member demanded that Hillel be expelled from campus and replaced with "a proper Jewish organization" (proper, the student confirmed, meaning anti-Zionist). This blog had already covered the Vassar College SJP chapter distributing literal (1940s-era) Nazi propaganda about Jews. These things happen, and there's something off-putting about claiming that it's a form of cheating or a smear to document it. Too many people think that naming and shaming antisemitism is by definition a witch-hunt. That cannot be right, and we should be very suspicious of political arguments which act as if it is right, or act as if the very act of accusing someone of antisemitism (or, for that matter, racism, or sexism, or Islamophobia) is dirty pool or foul play. So what accounts for my unease? Well, for one it might be the sense that college students, in particular, often say dumb things they regret, and there shouldn't be an entire website dedicated to spotlighting them and inviting people to berate them for it. How much one sympathizes with that point would seemingly correspond to how much one dislikes "call-out culture"; if you're not a huge fan of it (especially when it comes to young people not otherwise in the public eye) then Canary would seem to be one manifestation of a generally malign social trend. Another basis for objection might be the distinctively chad gadya character of many of Canary's entries. If one reads the site, very frequently a profiled individual is listed because he joined a group which hosts a speaker who supports an organization who bit the cat that ate the goat ... and so on. There's a very distinctive "guilt-by-association" character to what Canary does that I think is obviously objectionable, regardless of how you label it. And note how it resonates with the way blacklists are being deployed against Jews and Jewish groups right now (e.g., the announcement by several NYU student groups that they were boycotting a bevy of Jewish organizations -- including the ADL). Such calls very frequently proceed by similar logic: the group supports a program which hosts a speaker who said a thing ... so on and so forth. Such logic could be used  to ensnare essentially anyone who affiliates with anything -- which means in practice it must be deployed selectively to delegitimize certain groups and causes under the guise of neutral idealism. If that stunt makes us uncomfortable when it's deployed against Jewish groups, it should make us uncomfortable when it's deployed against Muslim groups. And here is where I think the Islamophobia charge has legs. I don't want to say "imagine if this were done to Jews", because it is done to Jews (albeit perhaps not in quite as organized a form). But there absolutely are cases of blacklisting Jewish students simply because they've joined pro-Israel groups, without any claims that the student has said or done anything remotely racist or Islamophobic. And such behavior I think is rightfully thought of as deeply chilling, and striking too deep in terms of the way it polices to the letter Jewish political and communal participation. Many Canary entries seem to be based entirely on groups the individual has joined (everything from Students for Justice in Palestine to the Muslim Students Association -- the latter of which, it is worth noting, joined the letter in solidarity with Hillel at Stony Brook), rather than any specifically antisemitic things that the individual has said or done. That seems to be as dangerous as equivalent blacklist efforts targeting Jews who are part of Hillel, or Students Supporting Israel, or J Street (yes, J Street). Indeed, I could go further. Let's take the case of the students who have, themselves, said antisemitic things -- they're on the record. Surely there could be nothing Islamophobic about including them in a database? Yet even here, I'm conflicted -- and again, the mirror-case involving Jews perhaps reveals why. Imagine there was a website which cataloged people -- mostly, though not exclusively, Jews -- who were members of Zionist or Zionist-affiliated groups for the purpose of declaring to the world that they were racist and should not be worked with. Wouldn't we view that as being antisemitic in character? Suppose that it limited itself solely to those persons who had engaged in Islamophobic remarks -- with the goal of showing the degree to which Islamophobia and racism were prevalent in Zionist discourse, in a way that gave the impression that such views ran rampant amongst (Zionist) Jewish college students. Could that be viewed as antisemitic? My instinct is yes. It is an instinct that is, admittedly, at war with my above acknowledgment that documenting the real and non-negligible existence of antisemitism that exists in pro-Palestinian movements is not a form of cheating (and I'd likewise agree that documenting the real and non-negligible existence of Islamophobia that exists in Zionist movements is likewise not wrongful). But in both cases it is a delicate thing, lest the impression be given that Jews Are The Problem or Muslims Are The Problem. It isn't wrong to demand that groups be attentive to that possibility and work proactively against it, and it isn't wrong to be suspicious of them when they seem indifferent to it. What was it that Maajid Nawaz said? “Who compiles lists of individuals these days?" Of course, the answer is "many people and many groups," and maybe that's not per se wrong (or even avoidable). But certainly it is something that requires considerable care and concern, and Canary -- given its propensity for guilt-by-association, given its wide sweep, and given the range of individuals it includes under its ambit -- doesn't strike me as expressing said care and concern. Is that Islamophobic? Depends on how you define it, but I would suggest that there is a prima facie case of a sort of moral negligence directed at Muslim students. In other circumstances, that same sort of moral negligence impacts Jews. Either way, it's a wrong, and it's entirely fair to label it as such. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2r7Rd2y

#academia #anti-semitism #Islamophobia

[trashartandmovies]

Berlinale Film Festival 2021, Industry Event, Day 2

One of the great treats of going to a film festival is getting the chance to wake up and see some transgressive mindfuckery first thing in the morning. This can be either thrilling, like seeing ANTICHRIST at 10:00 AM in Toronto and then being excited to see if the rest of the day’s movies can top that; or it can knock you out for the rest of the day, like seeing IRRADIATED at last year’s Berlinale and needing to process my contempt and hope for humanity.

Of course, part of the thrill of these experiences has been sitting with an audience and going through the mindfuckery as a collective, feeling the energy, seeing people walk out, getting through it together. When things are moved online, and the timing and schedule of your streaming film festival is more or less up to you, many pleasures are lost. But I have to say, there was a thrill in getting up at sunrise to put on some headphones and sit with THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, an effectively wild and perverse shriek of a movie from first-time director Dasha Nekrasova, and part of this year’s Encounters section.

Shot in New York City, on beautiful 16mm film, THE SCARY is a steep plummet down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, triggered by the death of Jeffrey Epstein and two roommates moving into a new apartment on 61st Street that may be linked to the man and the sex trafficking ring he was involved with. These details are merely the place setting for an aggressive and sometimes messy assault on good taste and mainstream cinematic conventions. The two roommates descend into different kinds of madness — Addie seems to be possessed by some sort of evil within the apartment, while Noelle is quickly consumed by the conspiracy theories circling Epstein, the royal family, pizzagate, etc. Wedged between the two is Nekrasova herself, playing an amateur sleuth who indoctrinates Noelle with lurid websites, pharmaceutical speed, and sex. From there, the rabbit hole just keeps getting wider and weirder, Addie becomes obsessed with Prince Andrew and creepy tarot cards keep popping up. There will be blood.

I found it all pretty damn intoxicating, but I can understand that others will be put off by its shrillness and lack of subtlety. While the movie is dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, and it gets some inspiration from EYES WIDE SHUT, it’s more along the lines of John Waters crossed with John Carpenter. If you hated FEMALE TROUBLE, you may want to stay away from THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST. Otherwise, this movie sits comfortably next to the kind of outre indie horror movies that got passed from VCR to VCR in the late 80s and early 90s. But what really makes THE SCARY kick, is how directly it speaks to the age of QAnon, the equal parts seduction and repulsion of violence, and the horror that comes from being trapped in a system you have no control over. My only complaint is that the film leans a little too heavily on old horror tropes right at the end, but this couldn’t take away the thrills it provided up to that point. I’m already looking forward to how Nekrasova might follow-up this one.

This year’s Golden Bear for best film went, deservedly, to Radu Jude’s BAD LUCK BANGING, OR LOONEY PORN. Another extremely transgressive film, this one takes a flamethrower to contemporary values in Romania and any other place where racism, sexism and authoritarian fetishism have taken root — meaning, it’s both very specific to Romania and quite universal.

The movie begins with a very graphic and absurdly funny home porno, being shot on a phone. Soon enough, we find out the woman in the video is Emi, a respected history teacher at a private school in Bucharest. The first act of the movie is Emi walking through Bucharest. The city is littered with signs of capitalism run amok, juxtaposed against fervent religiosity. Gambling and wholesomeness. Tastelessness and righteousness. The camera makes these connections with some choice camera panning maneuvers. These movements bring to mind Robert Altman’s style of movement — casual yet smart and impactful.

As Emi makes her way to her destination, the film’s regard for realism begins to deteriorate. Bit by bit, drivers begin showing less regard for the safety of pedestrians. Everyone is foul-mouthed and inconsiderate of others, even while wearing pandemic masks. If you can’t afford a car, who cares about you? It’s not that far from reality, but the pointed exaggerations start piling up and lead us into the mid-section of the film, where we’re treated to an A-Z montage of our most pressing issues and what’s wrong with the world. It both serves as a rundown of the topics that are going to present themselves in the final act of the movie, as well as more visual evidence of our corrupted values and moral decay. It’s a bitter and bleak hoot.

It’s all leading to a confrontation between Emi and her school’s parent-teacher board. It’s one of the most absurd, insulting and cuttingly insightful trials put on film. What are a teacher’s responsibilities outside the classroom? What if the teacher in this situation were a man? What if the teacher is also including lessons about Romanian history that today’s citizens would rather not deal with? All of this and much more is on the table for riotous discussion. More than once, someone cackles the Woody Woodpecker laugh when the debate really goes off the rails. While the visual language in the final act settles into a more conventional groove, the sound editing is something of a tour de force. It’s punchy, freewheeling, obscenely hilarious and brings the movie to an unbelievable final moment.

BAD LUCK is a hard act to follow. If I’d known how ambitious it was, I would have saved it for day’s final screening. But for better or worse, the next film was a very quiet, understated Competition title — this one from Hungary (which was well-represented this year), entitled NATURAL LIGHT. Written and directed by Nagy Dénes, this is a gorgeously shot war-is-hell movie that follows a weathered unit of Hungarian soldiers as they try to round up Russian partisans during WWII. Yes, the title of the movie perfectly describes the golden, autumnal hue of the movie, as it is primarily set in barren forests, small, sooty villages and fields with plenty of mud.

The film is based on a massive book by novelist Pál Závada, but Dénes made the interesting decision to just focus his movie on a few days in the life of István Semetka, who is forced to step up and take charge of his unit early on in the film. Aside from capturing the unrelenting force of their natural surroundings, cinematographer Tamás Dobos also does an amazing job of capturing people’s faces — not unlike the films of fellow countryman, Bela Tarr. Ferenc Szabó, who plays the beleaguered Semetka, has two of the most soulful eyes I’ve seen on screen lately. This is of critical importance since the film has very little dialog until a couple of well-written monologues at the end. Semetka’s eyes say it all.

As mournfully beautiful as it is, NATURAL LIGHT isn’t an easy movie to sit through. It’s quiet and heartbreaking. But this level of sorrow and atrocities is also very familiar to cinema. In a way, it’s unfair because this story, in its way, is unique. But the message of how indifferent war is to soldiers with good intentions, has been told before. Few movies, however, have told it in such a wordless and poetic way.

Throughout the history of film, there’s always been a struggle to turn good theater into cinematic art. When talkies began and TV took off, we turned to the wealth of good theater scripts that already existed as readymade source material that could meet the demand for content. Sometimes it works, and the scripts can be well-adapted into the cinematic language. Other times, it’s like we’re just looking at a filmed documentation of a theater piece, which relies heavily on the strength of the words and performance, and not on any tools of the filmic trade. Denis Côté’s new film does a neat job of adding a new wrinkle to this long tradition of finding ways to turn monologues and long chunks of dialog between two people into an engaging work of film.

Côté has always had a strong experimental streak to his work, and even though he wrote this script and titled it “Social Hygiene” in 2015, it would seem that the current pandemic gave him the final push to turn the unusual idea of long, socially distant conversations in a field into a movie. Aside from a few shots that follow a young woman as she walks through nature, says hi to some livestock and offers an intermission dance sequence, SOCIAL HYGIENE is a series of static shots, framing different sections of rolling Canadian countryside, and containing a couple of people talking to each other across a certain distance. The framing, the sounds, the tone and rhythms of the conversation, are all very stylized. And in its way, perfectly cinematic. Côté pays attention to the ambient noises during these scenes. Birds turn into a cackling audience, construction noises go quiet and resume at just the right moments — it’s all very well-orchestrated.

The story and conversations of SOCIAL HYGIENE have nothing to do with the pandemic. It’s the fairly universal story of a charismatic, smooth-talking guy of unmet potential, who is consistently disappointing the women in his life. This man is Antonin, and we first meet him as he bickers with his sister. While Antonin is married, he’s currently living in a friend’s car, getting by through small-time theft and avoiding plans that might improve his lot in life, like working on that screenplay he’s been kicking around. Both his wife and his mistress try to prod him in the right direction, but he’s such a charmer that he enjoys spinning his destitution as the life of a lovable rogue, who’s morals and values can’t be met by traditional means.

More than any other film seen, so far, from this year’s Berlinale lineup, SOCIAL HYGIENE had me laughing-out-loud the most. And I’m very willing to admit that this is likely due to how much I related to Antonin’s faulty reasoning. But it’s also due to the fact that the script is supremely sharp and its deadpan delivery brought to mind Hal Hartley’s films. Like Hartley, Côté is anti-realist in his staging and delivery, meticulous in his timing, and yet uses humor to get at some very fundamental human dilemmas. I love Hartley and miss his sensibility dearly. So, yes, I loved every minute of SOCIAL HYGIENE.

Even with a press pass, it can be a challenge to sit for every Competition screening. There are simply too many other films that call for your attention. But in this streaming scenario, I was committed to seeing every last one. I felt like I didn’t have any good excuse not to when you can make your own daily schedule. So, Xavier Beauvois’s ALBATROS (or DRIFT AWAY, as it may end up being called in your neck of the woods) got a late Tuesday night home screening. It didn’t go down well.

The only one of Beauvois’s previous films that I’m familiar with is 2005’s THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT, which follows a homicide detective in La Havre. ALBATROS follows a police chief in the much more idyllic region of Normandy. Jérémie Renier plays the cop, Laurent, and just as the movie starts, he’s just proposed to his girlfriend of ten years, with whom he already has a young daughter. In the next scene he’s cleaning up after a suicide on the beach, and then there’s news of child abuse by local resident, and his friend is at the end of his rope dealing with farming regulations. Things are piling up quickly, and the chipper Laurent is soon getting edgy and taking his work home with him.

The beginning of the movie isn’t bad. It’s clearly building to something and it can hold your interest while it does that. But when that shoe drops, the film goes off the rails and descends into a completely ridiculous and phony final act. It doesn’t help matters that Beauvois never really finds an interesting visual language with which to tell this story. From the get-go, his camera is just there, shooting scenes and conversations in a way that makes everything seem slightly off and unnatural. It feels like things are being staged, much as the wedding photo on the beach that gets interrupted by a death at the very beginning. Unfortunately it never shakes this feeling, and two hours later, you can’t believe that you’re watching an ending so clichéd that Hollywood would probably think twice before giving it a greenlight. It’s the kind of denouement that is so cheesy and unearned that instead of choking back tears, you feel completely cheated.

Aside from ALBATROS, Day Two was a rich abundance. The punk stylings of THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, the anarchic Molotov cocktail of BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN, the austere meditation of NATURAL LIGHT, the playful theatrics of SOCIAL HYGIENE — these all had something special to offer. Tomorrow, we’ll visit China, France, Georgia and, once again, Hungary, for two more films with big rewards and two that struggled to transcend their formal trappings.

[media-and-also-society]

Media & Society - Ch 3, 4, & 5

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of The Introduction to Mass Communication each discuss different sources of printed media. They cover books, newspapers, and magazines respectively. There were some key takeaways from each chapter that I found worth noting.

Chapter 3 discusses books, and the topic I found most interesting in this section was the idea of censorship and banned books. I found a very powerful quote that essentially stated that censorship threatens democracy. While I had never thought about banned books and censorship this way before, it made sense. Democracy ensures our freedom, and censorship does the polar opposite of that. Looking back over history at some of the most iconic banned pieces of literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Harry Potter Series, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to name a few) allows us to see what themes/topics people found inappropriate. Most of these topics center around racism, sexism, foul language, and discussions about sex. In my opinion, these topics are essential to understand. It will never stop baffling me that books are banned for things that society can do freely. Sex and racism, among many other topics, are ingrained in our society anyways. Books allow us to learn more about these issues in a less formal way, and therefore, they shouldn’t be deemed too inappropriate or unsafe to read. Citizens of any society should be free to consume the media they would like to, so long as it is not harmful to themselves or others.

Chapter 4 discusses newspapers, and one thing I took away from this section was the idea that newspapers aren’t obsolete yet in this modern, digital age. One reason for this that was highlighted in the book is the idea of localism. This is the fact that newspapers provide news in local areas that is otherwise difficult to find on the internet. Newspapers continue to make themselves relevant, despite the fact that more than 80% of our media today is digital. This is significant to me because it demonstrates that at least some portion of society will always have a love for printed media. I think having printed documentation of events that transpire every single day is a valuable thing that shouldn’t be taken for granted, especially because technology can always fail at some point or another. Printed papers will always be more reliable because you don’t need WiFi to use them. Hopefully, newspapers continue to be printed for as long as I’m alive.

Chapter 5 discusses magazines, which is a topic I personally don’t have to much experience with. The one thing I found very interesting about magazines was that they are typically targeted towards specific demographics. Unlike books or newspapers, which can appeal to most groups in society, magazines are typically marketed towards specific subgroups such as teenagers, athletes or history nerds to name a few. This gives magazines a distinct advantage when it comes to marketing. No matter who you or where you interests lie, there is a very high chance that there are magazines out there catered to your interests. This is why magazines continue to have such a powerful presence today. Whether it’s in print or online, people continue to seek them out for all the gossip, stats, or home décor ideas they might need.

Books, newspapers, and magazines are all sources of printed media that continue to find places in our society today. Though printed media may be on the decline, hopefully there will always be a place in society for the medium that was once all we had.

Emily Kmiecik

#media and society

[living-in-the-sburbs]

Feminism and Moms

Is it wrong of me to be grouchy at my mom for telling me to watch my language? Like it's not like I'm over here making disgusting sexual innuendos in front of my grandparents, but my brothers never recieved this kind of berating for a foul mouth when they were my age. I don't want to come up to my own mother raging about feminism, but for God's sake, I thought she prided herself as a strong woman.

I guess I'm just still mad about that whole fiasco a few years ago when I was trying on different gender identities and I came out to her and she ended up yelling at me in Khols. I wanted to go into the mens' section and when I brought that up, she told me to "just look around a little longer" and the harder I pressed, the harder she pressed back until she errupted and shouted "Why can't you just be happy with the gender you are?"

The more I meditate on my recent temper, the more of it I see from her. I'm sorry for being a smart ass, but stop calling me from across the house like a dog and expecting me to answer a mundane question. I'm just playing video games, but if your matter can wait, it will. "I'm busy" applies as long as what I'm doing is of equal importance or urgency as what you want me to do.

I mean, I'll be starting a game and she'll want me to clean the dishes. I say "Okay!" and of course as soon as my match is over, the dishes will get done. They always do, but within four minutes, she's storming over to the sink in a tizzy because "We never do what we're asked." Never has there been an incident where my mother asked me to do a chore and I just ignored it. Not since I was 13 and lazy by nature, as most 13 year olds are naturally inclined to be.

I promise I'm trying my best not to be an asshole teenager, but it seems like recently her patience has worn down to the point of absurdity. And it doesn't help that she's so dismissive of my effort. One of the things that drove me and my dad apart was the fact that he only cared about whether or not the house was clean, whether or not I had a job, and whether or not I was upholding his golden legacy of straight-A-student and social prodigy in high school.

My mom seems to have the same issues with me. I'm not interested in going out with the girls like she has been her entire life, I don't really like makeup and fashion and clubbing and boys. I don't see the appeal in scottish romance novels and I absolutely despise shopping, although that might just be because every time I've been shopping, it's been with her breathing down my neck.

And honestly, I think she resents me for it. I was the last of three children, the only girl (she wanted a girl so bad), and my birth was the last one because it rendered her completely infertile. It's not like I could control it, but you can't just dismiss the guilt that comes with that. She wanted like six kids and a few little girls to play dress up with, and instead she got one boy who rarely speaks to his family, one boy who's a smartass, and one girl who... Well, she's not as smart as the first one and not as charismatic as the second one and she's extremely angry and melancholy for someone her age (later in life my mom would look back on this and point out that she could have easily known I had a mental disorder from an early age had she really been paying attention) and she's barely even a girl.

Even as a kid, I was the athlete among my brothers. I was always the one climbing trees and running and playing in the woods, ignoring kids my age while one brother was constantly making friends and the other was constantly expanding his mind.

And then later in life, it turns out her little failed experiment of a baby girl doesn't like boys. And also she's not really interested in being a girl.

I'm not sure that now, even if everything had turned out well enough with my mom that I would still be interested in being a boy. But I guess I'll never really know because the support was never there, and even if I transitioned now, the knowledge that my mom resents my decision would ruin it.

I'm not saying that my mom's a bad person. She's just very short-sighted and her views make her wrathful. I don't ever entertain her intrusive racism and sexism and bigotry because she's always claimed to be fairly liberal, and I refuse to let her believe that "y'know maybe it's okay to hate all the brown people" or "y'know I've seen a lot of people saying that people who don't identify as any gender are stupid and weird, so that's my viewpoint on it too." I hate entertaining those thoughts because the more I let her think on hatred, the more she'll fall into it. There's a reason people get more conservative with age and it's because they're allowed to be.

I just hope that someday I can be who I want and she won't be too bitter about it. Am I wrong to hate her for limiting who I am?

#rant #reads more like a diary entry #tw #feminism #terfs #terf #hate #racism #sexism #bigotry #gender #gender identity #transgender #gay #queer #homophobia #ftm

[thereadingraindoe]

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

     At a glance

Pages: 304

Published: June 2015

4/5 stars

     Synopsis

Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra's near-comatose abuelo begins to say "No importa" over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep.... Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on. Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order's secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick's supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family's past, present, and future.

     Thoughts

    The month of January is diverse mythology in the 2017 Diverse Reading Challenge. I chose Shadowshaper because I don’t read a lot of urban fantasy so that caught my attention. A lot of mythology books are straight up fantasy and that’s not really my favorite. I also, shamefully, cannot remember the last book I read with Puerto Rican characters. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with Latinx mythology. That was what really drew me to this, I wanted to live up to the title of the challenge by truly diversifying my reading. Probably obvious, but disclaimer: I am incredibly white and therefore I do not have firsthand knowledge of these cultures or the racism that these characters face on a day to day basis within this book.

   I didn't read the synopsis before starting the book, so I was in for a bit of a roller coaster. The story was very interesting, art and mystery and urban fantasy all rolled into one. The book was a quick read with short chapters. I felt like it really revolved around the concept of family and found family, possibly even more so than it seemed on the surface.

    I don't read a lot of urban fantasy, but the cover of this book really caught my attention. The tag line of

                                              "Paint a mural.

                                                  Start a battle.

                                                       Change the world."

combined with the beautiful colors in the person's hair is incredibly eye catching and also fits well with the story. The dialogue was done well, even if it does slide into “hip teen lingo” occasionally, and was easy to read. Some of the dialogue is in Spanish, but it's easy to read without knowing the language, which is very much appreciated.

     This book was an incredible find for me, honestly. It tackles racism, sexism, gentrification, street harassment, and features a dark-skinned female with natural hair on the cover. The characters are all well fleshed out and there will be a sequel releasing in the next year. There is also a novella, set between the two book,s which has already been released, focusing specifically on Izzy (my favorite character, simply because I love girls that love girls and that also rap.) and Tee.     However, upon reflection, I feel as if there were a few things that weren’t wrapped up. The epilogue was beautiful, but I felt the actual ending of the book was incredibly rushed. I think the stakes of the Shadowshapers weren’t set up very well. It’s made to seem to quite dramatic, you know that the “Ultimate Shadowshapers” might die, but you aren’t sure as to the effect this will have. Even despite these issues, I do feel that this is a very interesting book and I would recommend it to most people. 

#read in 2017 #four stars #book reviews #YA #lgbtq #poc #urban fantasy #2017 diverse reading challenge

[paige-from-my-book]

And after that dark chapter we're back on track for your regularly scheduled angst! This section has some mention of sexism, racism, homophobia, and slight violence.

"The next day when I got to the office Andrea wasn’t at the lab. I looked around. I couldn’t recall a time I had been working when she wasn’t here. 

I saw John in the back room and offered a greeting. John smiled at me, waving briefly.

“How are you liking it here so far?” he asked.

“It’s great. Thank you again for giving me this chance.”

“You’ve more than proved you deserve it. Is there anything you need?”

I shook my head.

“I only ask because Andrea said you might need some days off.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. Didn’t say why, just said you might need some personal time.”

“Oh, um. No, I think I’m alright. Thanks for checking. Where is Andrea?”

“She went to a seminar that I told her she could go to in order to get a raise.”

I wanted to hold it back so bad, but after what Andrea had just done for me, I couldn’t. “Why does she need to go to a seminar to get paid more? I’d argue she’s the best vet here. It seems if she wants or needs a raise, she should get it.”

John stared at me for a moment, looking both shocked and a bit offended. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand it,” he said after an awkward and terrifying silence. “It’s called running an office.”

“So wouldn’t you want to reward someone who always works overtime and who outperforms all the others? Andrea is the most rational and logical person in this office, if she thinks she deserves a raise, I would think that’d be reasonable. Plus, when you’re not here she basically runs the clinic.”

“If you’re so in favor of giving her a pay raise, maybe I should take it out of your check?” he threatened.

I clenched my jaw.

“I gave you a chance, Hailey. You’re a good worker. Focus on what you’re good at, honey,” he chastised.

Honey??

“Yeah? How’s that working out with Shawn?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “He’s supposed to work today, isn’t he? Is he at that seminar, too?”

John opened his mouth, looking angry. “English isn’t even her first language.”

“Are you kidding? She’s multilingual, doesn’t even have an accent, and you see that as a reason to pay her less?  Oh second thought I think I do need those days. I didn’t realize I’d have to deal with masochistic bullshit here, too,” I said, feeling my temper raise my body temperature. 

I turned and started to walk away.

“You don’t have any accrued PTO,” John called after me. “Have a nice few unpaid days.”

I didn’t stop as I walked out of the office.  I just rode my bike until I was outside of the city limits where trees surrounded me.

A few weeks later, I was cleaning the mess that a customer had made in the empty waiting room. It was a slow day, but still someone had managed to spill their soda on our floor, even though we had a sign saying no food or beverages were allowed. 

I looked up as I heard someone come in from the back. Andrea. Purfect, I thought to myself, smiling a little.

“Hey, how’s your day so far?” I asked in a light voice. I found myself trying to talk to her more and more. Despite my attempts, she still seemed standoffish. 

“Fine,” is all she said back, not even looking in my direction. I stopped wiping up the floor so I could fully face her. 

“Do… Do you have any pets?” I continued, even though her tone said she didn’t want to talk.

“Mhm.” She started typing on the front desk computer. 

“How many?”

“A couple cats.”

“Oh. Do tail.”

She looked up from the computer, finally meeting my gaze. As with the other bad jokes I’d made, I could see her doing her best to keep any amusement at bay, but a small smile still came through. Finally she controlled her face enough to say, “You tell awful jokes.”

“I don’t remember telling good jokes being purtinent to the job.”

She couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face this time and she sighed deeply and looked up to the ceiling. She straightened out her face and continued working at the computer and, with finality, said, “You missed a spot.”

I chuckled a little as I turned back to the puddle on the floor. As I was finishing up with the towel and about to grab the mop I’d brought with me, a man walked in.

He was handsome. His cheek bones protruded slightly and his nose was crooked in a sort of rustic beauty. His hair was a few inches long and styled to be up and off to the side. His five o’clock shadow was barely visible on his long face. He was in shape, too. He probably went to the gym every day. 

He smiled politely as he passed me and then looked to the front desk to see Andrea. When he saw her, his smile widened. I couldn’t help but feel a protective flare in my stomach as he strode up to her.

“Hey,” he greeted in a deep voice.

Andrea looked up from the computer, shocked at first. But once she’d seen who it was, she looked annoyed. 

I continued my mopping, but turned my head so I could hear them better, ready to step in if Andrea needed it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly. Her tone seemed curious, but also slightly frustrated.

“I thought we had a great time last week,” he said. “So I wanted to come see you and see if we could meet up again soon.”

“We did, but I told you I don’t mix my personal and professional life,” she whispered. I could tell him being here was really uncomfortable for Andrea. If she liked me, I’d tease her about it later, but I knew better than to do that.

“Come on, you’ve never had someone visit you at work?” he asked. “How else could I make sure no one touched my pretty little girl?”

I could hear a smile in his voice but my eyes widened as my anger flared. The only thing that kept my feet planted to the ground was the look on Andrea’s face as I turned to yell at him. She shot a glance at me, telling me to stay out of it, but I could see her jaw clenching.

“Give me your phone,” she said.

“What? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that,” he said, sounding shocked and confused.

“And I’m not comfortable with you showing up to my work place. Phone. Now.”

“I’m not giving you my phone. That’s such an invasion of privacy. Darling, it’s cute when you try to take charge, but back off.”

“The woman said to give her the phone,” I cut in, unable to keep myself out of it anymore. Andrea was quiet and professional, but I knew her well enough to know that she didn’t like being talked to like that.

The guy turned around, as if forgetting that I was there. “Stay out of this, dyke.” Then he turned back to Andrea. “See? You don’t want her hitting on you, do you? Good thing I’m here.”

Andrea’s mouth dropped open and her eyes narrowed, like she didn’t even know what to say. Then she let out a huff of laughter in disbelief. “Fine, do it yourself then. Delete my number from your phone. Right now.”

“What?” the guy incredulously asked.

“You don’t talk to my coworker like that, and you don’t talk to me like that. I don’t see any reason for us to ever need to contact each other again. Delete my number right now and show me,” she answered coldly. 

“Why are you being such a bitch?” he asked.

I dropped the mop and was across the room before either of them could react. Luckily, his phone was hanging out of his pocket, so all it took was a shove into the counter that knocked the wind out of him, then while he was distracted I grabbed his phone. I noticed it had to be unlocked and his fingerprint ID was set up, so I kicked his knee sideways. 

He cried out and set his hand on the counter. When he did, I grabbed it, used his finger to unlock his phone, then handed it to Andrea.  She looked at me, horrified, but still took the phone.

“You fucking whore!” he yelled at me. 

At the noise, Todd and Nick were coming from the back. 

“Whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” Todd asked, stepping between the stranger and me. 

“This bitch just stole my phone,” the man said, pointing to me.

Todd looked at me, confused, but Andrea had been fast and was already dropping the phone on the counter.

“There you go. No harm no foul,” Andrea said, turning and leaving from behind the front desk to enter the waiting room. “Now leave. If you ever come back, I’ll get a restraining order.”

He turned angrily and slammed the door shut, muttering about the stupid dyke that got in his way.

“What…. What happened?” Nick asked once the waiting room was quiet. 

I was about to respond, but before I could, Andrea turned to face me, clearly fuming.  “Hailey, office. Now,” was all she said before storming off. 

Nick and Todd looked from each other to me to where Andrea had disappeared.

“Is your will in place?” Nick asked quietly.

“My will? I don’t really have anything to leave behind.”

“Oh, good.”

I shot Nick a glare before following Andrea. What had I done wrong? The guy had been harassing Andrea, and I’d stopped him. 

Andrea was waiting by the door of the office as I walked in. Once I was clear of the door, she slammed it shut, glaring at me.

“What? I couldn’t just let him talk to you like that,” I said, shrugging. “You did the same thing for me!”

Andrea took a deep breath, looking everywhere in the office except me. “I didn’t do it at the office, though. Hailey, you can’t just do that sort of thing!”

“What sort of thing? Protect my coworkers?”

“Losing your temper! Obviously I wanted to slap him, kick him in the nuts, berate him down until he was sobbing, but we’re working!  You can’t just do whatever you want! You have to be professional!”

“Professional? Nick shows up late half the time and Shawn misses a shift at least once every two weeks!”

“They’re men! And not a convict! Do you know what happens if James calls here or comes back and talks to John about what happened?” she asked, her voice rising a little. But she doesn’t give me time to respond. “He’ll realize it was you right away, think you’re too emotional and too violent to work here, and then fire you! Maybe even tell your parole officer! You can’t just react any way you want!” Andrea finally finished. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “He’s already pissed because of that little stunt you pulled, calling him sexist.”

“He is sexist,” I commented.

“He’s also your boss. And he can make life hell. I can’t get you a raise when you keep pulling shit like this.”

I stared at her for a long time. Get me a raise? When I didn’t say anything, she finally looked back at me and met my gaze. She looked worried more than angry now.

“Hailey, you fit your role great here. Don’t screw that up,” she muttered as she opened the door and walked out. 

#original story #fiction #lgbtq representation #lesbian love #lgbtlove #lgbtpride #lesbians #loveislove #f/f romance #f/f fic #animals #gay love #lgbtq #original work #lgbtq characters #original content #rescue #original writing

[mediacalling]

Top 6 Ways to Use Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant to Streamline Your Marketing

One social media account is a lot to keep up with. Most businesses are tackling anywhere from two to five, and social media managers are tackling many, many more. If you’ve ever felt like you’re drowning in direct messages, comments and (of course) complaints, I can promise you that you’re not alone.

We’ve all been there.

That terrible feels-like-you’ll-never-catch-up feeling is exactly why social media management software was created. Cohesive inboxes for all your social activity, all on one dashboard, was an excellent way to simplify things. But if you have active social profiles (and hopefully you do), that alone often isn’t enough to keep the chaos at bay.

Some amount of automation is needed.

Fortunately, we have access to that thanks to Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant. In this post, we’re going to take a look at how to use this feature to automate your inbox’s moderation and streamline your marketing (and hopefully save your sanity).

What Is Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant?

When you use Agorapulse, all messages coming to your social profiles show up in the inbox dashboard. This includes posts from users, comments on your posts and private messages.

This is already a huge advantage when it comes to simplifying things. Our Inbox Assistant takes it one step further. It consolidates your messages and reduces clutter thanks to the automatic moderation rules it offers.

Automatic moderation rules allow social media managers to set specific actions when posts or messages containing keywords or phrases show up on our pages.

The comments could be flagged for review, assigned to a team member, hidden, or even deleted depending on what you choose. You can also bookmark or label certain comments, or have an email sent to you under the same conditions.

Automated moderation make it easier to de-clutter your inbox while simultaneously drawing your attention to the potential customers who need it most. This lets you stay on top of things, whether a customer has a question about sizing or one angry person is trying to disparage your brand with false narratives in a comment on an ad.

6 Ways to Streamline Your Marketing with the Inbox Assistant’s Automatic Moderation

Like everything else in marketing, automatic moderation rules are most effective when implemented correctly. While effective moderation looks a little different for each individual business, there are 6 moderation rules that I set up for all of my clients almost without fail.

These can help you manage your social media profiles more efficiently.

1. Flag questions for review

Questions from your followers–and potential customers– should be addressed as soon as possible. Not only does this show that you have excellent customer service, but a fast response could also be the difference between a big sale or no sale.

In many cases, customers asking questions is a sign of purchase intent. Answering promptly can give them the information needed to make a purchase.

Flag questions for reviews by adding moderation rules for phrases like “do you,” “what if,” “can you,” and “what are.” Industry-specific examples could include phrases like “what ingredients” and “what software.”

Want to make sure you’re on top of answering all questions that cross your digital doorstep? You could automatically assign them to team members if you find this yields faster results or send yourself an email alert in addition to flagging them for review.

2. Identify frustrated customers early on

The last thing we want other customers to see is comments or posts from frustrated customers. “This doesn’t work” or “it broke in two days” aren’t doing you any favors and can tarnish how new potential customers see you.

Use automated rules to identify frustrated or angry customers early on and do what you can to 1) resolve the situation and 2) protect your reputation.

For this rule, I recommend targeting base keywords like “crap,” “doesn’t work,” “glitchy,” “waste,” “not worth it,” and “I tried,” along with any other phrases you see frustrated customers using.

I recommend assigning this to a team member so that it’s addressed as quickly as possible, because you don’t want these comments to be posted without a response for long.

Really worried? You can hide the comments and assign them for review at once, which gives you a little more time to do some research and respond. You can always unhide them later.

Want to really go for broke? I also bookmark these messages and posts so that I can follow up a week or two later if necessary.

3. Automatically delete spam

The bigger your page becomes, the more likely it is that you’ll get spam, especially on posts. It typically involves a link with someone (or a bot) trying to send you somewhere off-platform. You’ll see this a lot on Twitter and YouTube channels, but it can be found across the board.

If you catch on to any of these links and see them popping up, go ahead and create a moderation rule that automatically deletes the comment. This works for your private messages too, will save you a ton of time and significantly declutter your inbox. 

4. Remove offensive content before it appears

There’s no need to explain this one. Do you really want foul language, racism, sexism, or too many political messages all over your content? No. But that’s exactly what the internet is giving us these days. Trolls are running rampant.

Go ahead and set up “hiding” or “deleting” moderation rules for any keywords you don’t want associated with your page– you know the ones. While this does mean typing out all of those fun words into the moderation box, it’s better that they live there than on your public pages.

5. Send customer service questions to a single team member

Have you had an influx of specific customer service questions? Do you have a team member delegated to answering them? Automatically send the questions their way by assigning them the messages, saving you some time and freeing up the inbox.

One company I worked with had a specific team member answer questions about available menu items; they worked in store, and didn’t do any of the other social media marketing. Another client had one person handling all questions about shipping and tracking, or requesting demos. Still others may have salespeople to try to help with advanced order questions or schedule demos.

If this is the case, identify the phrases most often used to make these requests and automatically assign all comments and messages to that individual.

In the case of the client who had the customer service rep handling shipping questions, we used “shipping,” “tracking,” “ship,” “when will it get here,” and “mail.”

6. Bookmark positive user comments

Positive comments can make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That’s great. But they can also make a positive impact on your business. In addition to providing strong social proof, they can provide testimonials to use later (with permission) and even help you to identify potential brand advocates.

Bookmark these comments automatically so that you can come back to them when needed. Opt for phrases like “love” and “great” and “best.”

Creating Automation Rules Like a Pro

Social media management can make you feel like you’re putting out a small stovetop fire while someone is behind you cackling with a flame thrower.

But you can make your life easier by implementing common-sense automatic moderation rules with Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant.

The ability to flag questions, delete spam, hide questionable content, and identify customers who need help within seconds of the message appearing is exceptionally valuable. Now you can put out fires before they start, making everyone a lot happier in the process and improving your brand’s reputation.

What do you think? Do you use automatic moderation rules to make your life a little easier? Which rules do you have in place? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below! 

Top 6 Ways to Use Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant to Streamline Your Marketing posted first on http://getfblikeblog.blogspot.com

[nebris]

Addy Cole is at The dystopian future is here..

March 28 at 9:22am

·

Here’s a near naked photo of me so you’ll actually read the scary ass shit below that is greatly going to affect my livelihood and even more so by far black, brown, survival and trans SWs. SESTA and FOSTA won’t just affect us. Internet censorship is coming for y’all civs next. Microsoft just updated TOS yesterday to say no more nudity or foul language on Xbox live or Skype and Craiglist personals are down along with like ten SW sites. My friend Vee Chattie wrote a great guide to what you can do:

Things you can do to help sex workers in the wake of #FOSTA and #SESTA (non-monetary ideas included)

1. Give your money to sex workers. If you know folks struggling, and can afford to, throw them some cash. If the workers that you know are fairly privileged, ask them to give some cash to some less privileged workers that they might know. Many of us are losing the platforms which we advertise on and so money is going to be tight.

2. Share your resources. Do you have a job that gets you discounts? Are you able to get some extra food on your way out at the restaurant? Do you have some sky Miles that you can donate to help a sex worker go work in a different city so they can make up for the deficit? Do you have a spare bedroom or couch that someone can crash on if they lose their housing?

3. Share sex worker content. Many of us are posting about this stuff and it would be extremely helpful if you could hit that share button and keep that content on people‘s radar. Now is not the time to be sheepish or be concerned about whether or not your friends and loved ones will judge you. We already get a bunch of judgment and, to be perfectly honest, if you are willing to share the content about kids getting shot in the street and homophobia and such, then you should be talking about sex workers rights as well because sex work is the intersection of all of those things. These laws are based in racism and sexism and that needs to be considered and addressed. Also, keep in mind that this bill has already shut down the sub Reddit and a lot of sex worker only discussion groups and a lot of us are sitting here with this sword hanging over our heads wondering when our Facebook accounts are going to get shut down. When and if that happens, we will need you more than ever. #slutupandlisten

4. Bug your senators and representatives. If you don’t know how to contact them, you can text RESIST to 50409 And they will tell you how to contact those people. When you do, please tell them that the passage of FOSTA and SESTA is having a devastating effect on people in your community and you would like for them to repeal it.

5. Listen. Pretty much every sex worker I know is scrambling right now to not only make sure their business stays afloat, but also to inform and educate the people around them because, quite honestly, we don’t know what else to do. When sex workers talk to you about these issues, don’t tell us what you think should be done because you don’t know the business and we are already being talked down to by our clients, the government, family, and the public at large, so we don’t need any more condescension. Sometimes we just need an ear or shoulder to cry on. Be that person. And definitely don’t be the person asking sex workers how to get into the industry right now. We don’t need more newbie workers coming in at this time and they won’t make money anyway, especially with the current climate. We need resources, we don’t need leeches. Please be considerate of that when you lend a hand or ear.

6. Correct people when they say negative things or make jokes about sex workers. Especially when you’re in public. I know it’s uncomfortable, but imagine being a sex worker in a room full of people, and then someone makes a joke about how you should be dead, and everybody laughs and nobody says anything in your defense. I can tell you from experience, its a very isolating and distressing experience. It’s hard enough to think that your government wants you dead, but it’s even harder when it’s people who are your IRL friends and associates. When you stand up for sex workers, just remember that there might be a sex worker in that room who, even though they may not ever tell you, will appreciate that someone cared. A lot of us suffer in silence because we have to do. Try to minimize that suffering if you can.

6. Share your skills. Are you a great babysitter and have a couple hours that you can give to a sex worker so that they can go to work? Are you good at building websites or know a lot about tech and/or security? Do you teach a yoga class and think you could pencil in a special class for sex workers here and there to relax and connect to their bodies? Think about the things that you are good at and how you can use that to help folks.

7. Share you contacts. Do you have famous friends with lots of twitter followers? Do you know lawyers or legislators? Start educating them. Ask them to talk with their base and retweet sex worker content. ESPECIALLY if you have friend who may have said disparaging things about sex workers in the past.

This is what I’ve come up with for now, but if someone else thinks of more ways that people can help sex workers, please add it to the comments and I will add it to this post. Also, there will be articles and resources added to this post as I think of them. Feel free to add this to the comments as well. Love you.

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

I Was Openly Gay On My High School Team And Heard Slurs All The Time

This article originally appeared on Outsports.

If I had a dollar for every time I was in the locker room and heard the word “faggot” in high school, I’d be a rich man.

I’ve heard it spoken in my presence as a closeted gay man, been called it as a closeted gay man, and even been provoked by the word as an openly gay man. And more often than not, it’s been in a locker room.

When that word was spoken in my presence as an openly gay student in the high school locker room, my water polo teammates would pause, realize what they said, and slowly look at me to see if I was offended. I would look at them with a judgmental eye and say, “I’m not offended by your ignorance, that’s your own problem.”

Typically, they would still apologize for it, but it wouldn’t stop them from using it again the next day or the next opportunity they had to let the word slip off their tongue without realizing its damaging consequences.

I’m still not sure what made them more ignorant ― the fact that they were using the word or the fact that they were using the word in front of an openly gay teammate. I wasn’t shunned by any means for being gay — after coming out as a senior, I was chosen one of three captains.

My experience in the high school locker room was not, by any means, all negative. There was something special about sharing a space with my swimming and water polo teammates, like our own home, where we would convene every day after school.

My walks to the locker room after class were the most exciting parts of my day. We could all hang out there before a long, two-hour practice, talk, do homework, and do stupid things like play volleyball over the lockers.

It truly was a safe space for us to be more than teammates. It was a place where we became best friends and brothers. By writing this, I do not mean to demean or bring into question the character of the people with whom I share my experiences. I am guilty of engaging in inappropriate locker room talk as a high school student, and I know today that my teammates and I have grown out of this stage of immaturity.

But what is it about the locker room that fosters such offensive and foul language? Why is “locker room talk” a real phenomenon, and why do high school boys feel inclined to engage in it?

The locker room is seen as a sacred place for a team — a place where conversations should never escape the doors to the field or the pool. The enclosed walls of the locker room give young men a chance to do their own gossiping, where they feel they can sexually degrade women, let offensive words fly freely, and talk about the most vulgar of topics — things they would not dare to say in the presence of their mothers, sisters or coaches.

It must be something about the psychology of boys — the id, as Sigmund Freud terms it — that makes the human mind think and act in the most barbaric and savage ways.

But if they wouldn’t say it in the presence of their mother, then why say it at all? It must be morally wrong to say these things, and that’s the point. We’re all a bit morally wrong, some more than others, and this is the one place boys can do it without facing judgement.

“When a boy calls another boy a faggot, it is not only offensive to the person receiving it as an insult, but even more so offensive to every gay person having their identity being made an insult.

I am by no means excusing it and I’m not even close to justifying it. It’s still disgusting and still offensive regardless of the explanation behind it. The term “faggot” is degrading — it gives a derogatory term to a word that in most cases is being used as a synonym for “gay.”

When a boy calls another boy a faggot, it is not only offensive to the person receiving it as an insult, but even more so offensive to every gay person having their identity being made an insult.

Locker room talk goes beyond homophobic slurs. I’ve heard the most degrading, sexist language used in the locker room against women. Slut-shaming, body ratings, everything disgusting you could ever imagine coming from a man’s mouth.

As a Penn State college freshman still waiting to begin a new water polo season, my experience is limited to the high school locker room, where I have had my most recent encounters with locker room talk. The reason I feel that locker room talk is so prominent in high school locker rooms and among young men, is because of the maturity levels that exist in high school.

At the ages between 14-18, a high school student has little experience in the world outside of the small environment he is exposed to at home and in high school. My high school was reasonably economically and racially diverse, located in the suburbs of the Reading, Pennsylvania, area. Despite the diversity that existed within the school, it was still its own bubble infested with cliques.

There is something secluding about childhood, where we lack the ability to see outside the bounds of our respective small towns and smaller high schools. When people step into the world, move onto college, and become professionals, they begin to see diversity and differences in a positive light, rather than being apprehensive about it as many high school boys are.

When we begin to learn to embrace diversity, we begin to appreciate individuals. We learn that women are more than their bodies and their body-counts, they are more than the make-up that they wear or don’t wear, they are more than the sexual objects they are made out to be. When we embrace diversity, we learn that offensive words like “faggot” and “slut” are, to their core, divisive and belittling.

What would happen if we began to instill this in our children at a young age? Rather than letting people learn this from experience, we should be preaching these lessons early on. We could avoid things like bullying, sexual assault, offensive language, and divisions in our society.

Racism, sexism, and homophobia stem from ignorance and lack of understanding for others. As long as we still live in a world where the effects of centuries of inequality are still ingrained in our society, we must indoctrinate our children at an early age with the idea that all people should be treated as equals, irrespective to race, gender and sexual orientation.

Tony Covell, 18, is a freshman of the class of 2020 at the Penn State University. He is majoring in International Politics and Spanish, and will be a member of the men’s water polo team this spring. He can be reached at [email protected], @anthony_covell on Instagram, and Tony Covell on Facebook. You can read his coming out story.

Story editor: Jim Buzinski

For more from OutSports, check out these stories:

Browns’ Joe Thomas: Every NFL locker room would welcome gay teammate with open arms

As this trans cyclist is breaking barriers, she receives praise and uninformed criticism

171 LGBT people in sports who came out publicly in 2016

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