#like...... please learn that people can vote and ALSO protest

[serialadoptersbracket]

Round 3, Match 3: Inspector Barnes vs. August

Submitted kids:

Inspector Barnes: Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle, George Cubbins/George Karim, Holly Munro, Quill Kipps

August: Hisoka Mikage, Chikage Utsuki

Propaganda under the cut!

Inspector Barnes:

1. “Mustn't be easy keeping those three (Lockwood, George, Lucy) alive”

2. “Serial adopter of waifs and strays, carefully hidden behind the guise of strict enforcer. He's a softie and we all know it.”

3. “Even though he'd never admit this be of his grumpy character Barnes really became a father for all members of Lockwood & Co. He was the only adult who cared about their lives and he tried to keep them safe and sound, but like all teenagers they didn't listen to him. But they always knew that if they had some prolems (which they actually often had) they could always ask Barnes for help, advice or support”

4. “Barnes adopted a smiling giraffe with a death wish and a blinding smile, a 5 foot Northern bitch who can and will fight god on a Tuesday, a researcher who likes sticking his nose where he shouldn’t and three people max, and a secretary who shot at least a dozen people and is way more badass than she seems”

August:

1. “august is the adoptive older brother of hisoka mikage and chikage utsuki. for context, these characters are all spies, and were invited into the organisation by august. (also known as misha sometimes). hisoka is december, and chikage is april! their collective group name in fanon is "gekkagumi."

the first interaction we see of him in game is him adopting hisoka off the street. he was a dying homeless child, and august invited him to join the organisation. at first he declined, but august kept coming back to him until he followed (despite chikage's protests about it) he fed fed hisoka gingerbread, and declared "we're a family now."

chikage was adopted before hisoka, but we only learned more about it later in the story. chikage was living in a "facility" when he runs into august who lives in the organisation.

despite their very harsh life, august really did everything he could to give hisoka and chikage the best life he could. he loved the idea of family, and always encouraged them to celebrate christmas and birthdays, and play games!

august had a cover job where he owned a candy store. despite it just being a cover, august loved it and had a genuine care for the children. he used to give away free sweets to the point his shop was actively going out of business, and whenever he saw a sad kid he'd try his best to cheer them up. people around the town came in just to talk to him, to the point where hisoka said when he was covering the shop for him, the first thing people would ask was "where's misha?"

in his shop, he also used to have a myth that if you wrote a wish on a certain brand of cookie's wrapper, the wish would come true. august spoke excitedly of the wishes kids would wish for.

events in the story lead up to august's untimely death. years later, hisoka runs into a kid who used to go to his shop. this child had wished to be a painter, and was now painting. he actually ended up in possession of a wrapper august wrote on which said ""a happy family."" however, the boy couldn't read japanese and didn't know what it said. despite that, he held onto the wrapper for years after august's disappearance. he also manages to draw a picture of him from memory. :((“

2. “he's so . gwahh he just wants to give them a nice family”

3. “please vote for august!! he is such a kind soul who shows so much generosity and selflessness despite the cruel circumstances he was stuck in.”

#inspector barnes #august a3! #lockwood and co #a3! act addict actors #save lockwood and co #a3! #serial adopters bracket #round 3 #tumblr polls #tumblr tournament

[decolonize-the-left]

Now is a good reminder as to why we build community. Why we share solidarity. Why it's important to have peers and be comfortable in the physical presence of them.

Mobilizing online is not safe in a surveillance state. We need to physically be with each other. If you look at any old protest or civil rights movement they knew that. They had physical meetups where phones couldn't be tapped and listening ears couldn't eavesdrop.

With Roe v Wade overturned (and Justice Thomas saying that same sex relationship/marriage and access to contraception should also be "reconsidered") I feel like it's important to mention how critical mutual aid is. How crucial it is to have allies and people you can turn to. To know exactly where to go when you need to seek out safety.

Yes protest. Yes make your voice known. Learn how to help others.

But absolutely do not underestimate the power of going to a local meet up/protest and making friends. Not just with your group of feminists or LGBTs or anti-racist action leagues either. Go to each other's events. Build supportive relationships. Build solidarity. Expand your community.

Remember whether it's our uteri they're after, our land, our oil, our kids, our marriages, or our human rights... we have more reasons to fight together than we'll ever have to tear each other apart.

Don't let them do that to us. TERFs, racists, undercover cops, the CIA, the kkk, the FBI, etc. They've all spent decades trying to cut off our communities from one another. Spent decades trying to ruin our communities from the inside out and limit our strength. We can't allow that anymore.

They are coming for all of us.

And it is all of us that they will be up against, united

How can you help once you created a network/group of friends?

Protest. That's #1.

As an extension of bodily autonomy, allow folks to use their bodies and protest how they see fit. If someone is making you uncomfortable or doing something you disagree with, walk away.

Make sure you're prepared with the proper gear, escape route, etc. Know your rights.

There are tons of tips for this so I'll leave it at this so the post doesn't get too long.

For folks who can't protest but wanna do more than vote and don't know what to do then please check out these suggestions from another post

Tumblr let me blaze my solidarity post so now I'm updating it to include direct action tips.

ALSO

#2 Build Mutual Aid

As in, once the systems start being dismantled a lot of us marginalized folk will still need access to things food, water, medical, etc. A lot of us already need this tbh, federal and state aid isn't as effective as most people think it is.

Start community gardens, community fridges, pantries, etc. Work with local nurses and such to set up free clinics. The idea behind mutual aid is that everyone is helping. It is not simply charity. It a chance for communities to come together and give what they can so that Everyone can be safer, healthier, and happier.

Maybe you need a hair cut and maybe your hair stylist neighbor needs their house cleaned or someone to babysit. This exchange? Mutual Aid. The aid ... is mutual. Mutual Aid can be anything also. Maybe you can't cook or babysit but you tell good jokes. Maybe you can't tell jokes but you can reach the stuff on the top shelf. Maybe you're really good at breaking the ice or lightening the mood.

Everyone has a place in mutual aid, everyone is valuable, and everyone has something to offer.

🖤 Take care of each other 🖤

#solidarity #roe v wade #abortion rights #lgbt rights #womens rights #ndn #black lives matter #leftists #communists #landback #anarchists #direct action #feminism #trans rights #gay rights #ssa #pride month #current events #usa politics #indigenous #capitalism #biden #antiracism #human rights #reproductive rights #ancom #acab #obergefell v hodges #lawrence v texas

[i-eat-nail-polish]

Hey I’m gonna probably post more serious stuff because I need to have discussions with people about Palestine. For one I live in an area and am surrounded by people who aren’t pro Palestinian. They don’t take anything surround boycotts or information in general about the genocide serious at all because it doesnt effect them. It’s starting to wear on me because there’s no one to cope (idk if that’s the right word) with what I see online on a daily basis. Ever since mid October or so? (When the tik tok algorithm caught up with the time) I’ve seen countless atrocities that I’ve only ever seen in video games or movies played out in real life against real people. I learned what real bombs sound like both far away and up close because of these videos. Lately I’ve also started to dream about being trapped in Gaza with that feeling of death looming. It sounds dramatic but it’s true. Every day I’m thankful that I’m constantly shown information about Palestine and surrounding Arab countries and I’m also in shock. I’m in shock for a few reasons. 1: I’ve watched for months now, a country, a land and it’s people go through something worse than hell and nobody around feels the same sadness and basic human empathy. No one cares to take in that there’s a massive loss of life and culture and future for whatever reason. It’s gut renching to think about it. 2: I can’t help beyond witnessing and documenting. It seems stupid and corny to think that we’re privileged to have phones but documenting this horrible event through a phone camera is so incredible for history. It just feels almost insulting that that’s all I can do as a poor college student in America. Yes, I can call my representatives which thankfully where I live do support a free and liberated Palestine, but others won’t even do much as think about their constituents. It’s hard because it feels like we’re trying to move a volcano with plastic beach shovels. So all we can do is sit and save videos before social media giants take them down. 3: coming to terms that nobody looks out for each other on a large scale. Because I follow now many journalists from various sectors ranging from on the ground in Gaza to political scientists giving me lessons on the United Nations history, I’m shocked at how all of it is fake. Nothing makes sense anymore. You’re telling me because 2 countries won’t vote on a ceasefire but 98% do we can’t move on with it? Why does the US get privileges that to my limited knowledge no one else has the same power leverage as. How has nobody else stepped in when MANY war crimes are being committed. Why do they even exist if countries are never seriously prosecuted? Why even have rules if you can’t follow them? It’s disheartening to watch but I can’t give up hope. I’m not giving up hope because that’s all we have. I may not have direct ties to Palestine but as if needless suffering is enough for me to care, I care especially for the queer family in Gaza. They are as much apart of the queer family as my roommates are. I don’t know if and when we lose LGBTQ+ people in Gaza but I know it’s happening so I cry for the loss of our family. I need to see an end to this. I need to. I don’t know how to process any of what I’ve witnessed or feel right now or even what else I can do to help stop a genocide. I need to talk to people so please may you strike up conversation. Correct me in any place, tell me about the latest boycotts, show me protests. Please converse we have to keep hope alive.

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #pro palestine #🍉 #activism #coping #long post #alhamdulillah #inshallah #palestine will be free #free palestine until its backwards #gaza #gaza genocide #genuinely asking #please help #boycott divest sanction

[flouryhedgehog]

Voting is a tool.

By which I mean, voting is just a tool; it isn't sacred or magical.

And by which I also mean, voting is one tool that is good for one kind of purpose. If it isn't suitable for the goal you're trying to achieve, you need different tools.

Every time someone makes a post on here rightly criticizing Joe Biden's support for genocide, there's at least one person in the notes saying "but remember, you still have to vote for him!" or, "did you know Trump wants to deport Muslims?" or, "then who do you want me to vote for?"

But that's like going into a plant nursery and demanding they sell you the correct drill bit for planting a tree. They will never sell you the drill bit you want, because the drill bit you want--the drill bit suitable for planting trees--doesn't exist, and also plant nurseries don't sell drill bits.

Standing in the plant nursery asking about drill bits will probably initially get you people explaining to you where to find a shovel, and a watering can, and some mulch, because those are tools that will help you plant the tree. If you ignore the attempts to educate you, and start yelling about how they must just want you to throw away your drill, and also they probably hate trees and hate you and want you, personally, to suffer in a world without shade, you'll start getting different answers, like "please stop shouting" and "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

Because you're demanding that they tell you how to use the wrong tool for the job. They can never give you the answer you want; the answer you want doesn't exist.

I can't tell you who to vote for to prevent the rise of fascism in the United States, both because you can't prevent something that's already happened, and because you can't vote your way out of fascism.

You need different tools; you need to ask different questions and be willing to sit with the answers, even if they aren't the answers you want.

Boycotts are a tool. Protests are a tool. Shutting down highways, physically blocking weapons shipments, picketing arms companies, those are tools. So is going to your library and checking out books about Palestine, and about decolonization generally.

Instead of asking which war criminal you should vote for, perhaps ask how you can organize members of your community to support and look after each other and keep each other safe. Perhaps ask how you can support Land Back and prison abolition. Ask how you can organize a union in your workplace.

The tool you're most comfortable using isn't going to work for this job. Learn how to use another.

#palestine #joe biden #genocide joe #us politics

[directactionforhope]

Go Here for Instructions on How to Submit Posts!

And go here for an example.

Submissions limit of 5 posts per person each week, please!

Otherwise, unfortunately, I'll get too overwhelmed by the submissions volume to post anything. Thank you for your understanding!

Me and the Basics

Call me Cactus! They/them, late twenties.

I'm the person who runs the Reasons for Hope tumblr.

This is a sideblog-to-a-sideblog for Reasons for Hope, because I want to promote actions and spread awareness for things that don't always fit on a good news blog specifically

For context: Queer, trans, disabled, white, USian, for context.

Let me know if I post something offensive, I promise I have practice fixing things when I mess up instead of lashing out at the person who told me. I don't want to post hurtful things, so I genuinely want to always learn more about how to not do that, even when it's uncomfortable.

This is all very long because I'm still incapable of being concise.

About This Blog

Made this blog because I keep wanting to reblog or post about actions people can take, but didn't want to put them on Reasons for Hope unless they were actually mostly good news.

As a person who's Been There with spiraling, I really get the need to have access to a space that you know will contain good news and ONLY good news, in this day and age.

Also made it because I have Opinions and want to talk about Issues and activism and I'm committed to not doing that on my good news blog unless it involves, again, actual good news.

So, follow if you want! I definitely invite people to send in actions (links to campaigns/petitions/major protests/letter writing campaigns/etc.) specifically as submissions. I'll put up a how-to and link it here at some point, bc I've learned from Reasons for Hope that if they're in ask format I won't usually have the time/energy to reformat that/make it into a post.

(Sorry to people who've sent asks in on there, you're great. I'll switch to a submissions-based attempted system there too once I get the chance. May be a minute, I'm about to start a new job(!!).

My Editorial Standards

My usual editorial standards from Reasons for Hope apply, modified for this sort of blog:

Any donation-related posts/submissions need to be from some kind of established organization. It can be super grassroots etc. but I need to be able to verify that it's not a scam.

For that reason, no personal fundraisers/gofundmes. I'm genuinely sorry about this because I know a lot of people need the help but like I say on Reasons for Hope, there's no way to truly vet the vast majority of those posts, and I really don't have the time to try.

I'll come up with some sort of tag to put on all the particularly upsetting/fucked content so people can filter it and just see the action posts. Preferably something unique so it doesn't screen out other people's posts if you want to filter

More below:

I'll also have a tag for any particularly upsetting/fucked informational/educational things I post, because I do want to help spread awareness about a number of things, some of which will be pretty upsetting.

That said, I'll try to keep those informational posts only to things that are solutions-focused and/or have an element of good news or hopeful updates, where possible.

I'll also keep most of those posts behind a read-more where possible.

For more info about why I'm including that stuff, see the bottom of this post.

I will not post any campaigns or actions for reelecting Joe Biden until either the genocide in Gaza ends, or until September 1, 2024 (the month early voting starts).

Why do I have that policy? Because Joe Biden is absolutely committing war crimes, but Donald Trump would still, in fact be worse, for the US in general, for BIPOC in the US in particular, and for Palestinians/Gaza. I made a post about this with more details that I'll link here at some point.

Everything is going to be labeled with the link's source, the organization running it, the date posted (if identifiable), and the dates of the campaign/campaign deadline.

Re: Posting bad news here

I've been thinking about starting this sideblog-to-a-sideblog for a while now, because there are a lot of actions/campaigns/etc. that I really wanted to help promote, but did not want to put on Reasons for Hope, because I'm trying really hard to keep that limited to actual, you know, reasons for hope.

That said, I will be including upsetting stuff here. It will have its own tag for people to filter if they only want to see the links to actions. But I am committed to including it.

More below the read more, because this got longwinded and a bit personal:

That's partly because there are a lot of issues that very people know about, and I believe a lot in the power of spreading knowledge/awareness.

It's also because of the reason I finally stopped pondering and decided to start this blog: I just found out tonight that my grandfather died young because of toxic radiation from a nuclear meltdown at a super dangerous and experimental nuclear reactor, which the US government covered up completely and continued operating for decades. Right next to Los Angeles. btw.

If you live in or near Simi Valley, Chatsworth, or the West San Fernando Valley, or your parents did, get high-risk-level-appropriate cancer screenings. And if you're in Simi or within like 5 miles of it...probably don't drink the tap water. Also maybe try to move. (Consulting with a public health scientist/activist friend about this, will report back.)

I was already anti-nuclear, including anti-nuclear power, because of the absolute devastation it's done, especially to Indigenous communities and Japanese civilians. I didn't want to get into it on Reasons for Hope because of the whole "urgency of climate change" thing. But suffice to say that being anti-nuclear just shot very far up my "activism priorities" list.

None of this, or any other horrific things I may post about, conflict with or ruin my faith in humanity. I've definitely been incredibly pessimistic and misanthropic in my life.

But I believe that, for all the bad and evil things humans do, there is equal or greater potential for good. I believe it's like they say: "Hurt people hurt people." That's not the case always, but it is very often. Now, for the first time in history, we have the physical ability to end starvation and scarcity and a lot of death and suffering. We're still getting there, though we still have a long way to go.

I believe in a future where we can all hurt each other (and the other life around us) far less. I believe in a future where we have beaten and reserved at climate change.

I want to live to see that future, and I want all of you to get the chance to see it with me.

#blog business #me #admin

[jesin00]

Thank you for openly admitting that you aren't ashamed to vote for a genocider. Most democrat voters try to hide their support for genocide, so it's nice to see some honesty for a change.

Either you don't understand the situation we are in or you don't understand what "support" means. If withholding my vote cannot lead to the genocide stopping sooner or any lives getting saved, then casting that vote cannot have been "support for genocide" in any way that makes sense.

I expect to vote against Biden in the primary. I expect to vote for any pro-Palestine or pro-ceasefire candidate I can find in the congressional races (both primary and general). If you can vote for anyone on this list of cosponsors of the pro-ceasefire House resolution, or if you can find anyone in favor of a ceasefire in your area's primaries, please vote for them.

As for the general election, I live in a purple state, which means if a Democrat loses in my state, a Republican wins and nobody is surprised about it. Have you heard what the Republicans are saying about Israel and Palestine? Last I checked, the Republicans mostly believe that Israel should completely overrun Palestine, whether to fulfill Biblical prophecy or to rid the world of the Muslims / brown people they hate or both. The Republicans are in fact worse on this issue.

If Biden wins the primary and loses the general election because he lost somewhere like Virginia, Georgia, Wisconsin, or Nevada, nobody will be shocked and the Democrats will probably chalk it up to being "not centrist enough". If you want the Democrats to learn the right lesson from losing a Presidential race in 2024, they need to lose somewhere like California, Vermont, or Massachusetts, ideally while pro-Palestine Democrats win their races in those areas. If you can scare them by putting Barbara Lee (D-CA, voted for ceasefire) into office with ballots where the President slot is blank or 3rd-party, by all means do that.

Also remember there are other actions you can take besides voting! Protests and other sorts of actions are going on in lots of places!

If you want me to sell out myself and my queer friends and family by letting a Republican win in a swing state, you better have a rock-solid plan for how this will actually save lives, and right now I am not convinced you have one.

#us politics #israel palestine conflict

[wewebaggit]

SAG AFTRA issued a statement in favor of supporting Israel and twitter was going batshit condemning writers and also actors, suddenly the whole support for the strike became empty in ppl's eyes due to the state of politics.

I am unaware of this. As a general rule I'm not a fan of people airing out their opinions or even being expected to air out their opinions about everything under the sun but especially highly sensitive issues such as these for nothing but posturing. That's all. I saw some dumfuck post about history asking you what you did to stop the genocide. Keep your answers ready or whatever. And I'm like. Tell me what you did apart from a stupid Tumblr post abt your (not really) bleeding heart.

Mine may be an unpopular opinion but I do judge people who make it so that expressing their opinion on each and every sensitive issue of the day in public is their whole personality and making it a metric of judging people but most importantly propping themselves up.

If you're not out there doing shit then you aren't doing shit. Period. Please don't delude yourself into thinking that a name.txt post is you contributing towards the cause. Get off the high unicorn.

If SAG-AFTRA has done this, it's yet another incident of sticking it in the wrong place. Not everyone has the bandwidth of understanding everything. In fact, no one has that. And sometimes shutting the fuck up is good and recommended.

There's no need to add to the cacophony. As could be seen earlier more was made of what a celeb says instead of idk devoting that time to asking themselves what they did to stop the genocide for their history test or whatever.

My anger has and always will be for people wearing causes like designer bags. In this season, out the next. You're cool if you're wearing it and fuck off if you're not on it yet. How dare you.

That's what's happening. That is the long and short of it. I too have been a part of this posturing crowd in my youth but it was stupid then and it's stupid now. (I talk about myself preemptively answering any ask that may try to counter me on this daftest of points.)

The changing of the profile picture, the hashtags, they do nothing. If you're not converging with black armbands on the road, it's not a protest. If your work was done as you lay on the bed holding in or letting out a fart it's not work. Activism involves activity. And therefore, idgaf abt the discount slacktivists who tweet or tumble in the way one lies about speaking French on their CV.

Celebrities, non-celebrities, organisations not in the service of serving the cause, etc. can all go fuck off. An opinion is an opinion and it may be right or wrong. But it cannot take precedence over reality. You hate someone's opinion - then you want to hate them - but no you want them to first learn and apologise - and yet you want to hate them - or maybe you don't - and that will be your personality for a while. And guess what the issue was never what one fucker thought about something. The issue was always that *something*. And that something wasn't glamorous enough a 100 years ago and it isn't now.

We'd much rather engage in debating a reaction to a thing than understand that in the grand scheme of things a right and a wrong opinion both hold the same weight of a grand total of nothing. Because none of us is DOING anything. Poseurs the whole lot of us.

SAG-AFTRA put out a statement. Did it take a vote of its members to see if they agreed? If they took a vote was the vote split published? Why does an opinion on a geopolitical conflict have any bearing on the demand for better working conditions of members in an entirely different geographical location and vice versa?

Right now. At this moment. I could be pro either party or neutral or whatever and it would do nothing for nobody. Zilch. Anyone feeling otherwise about their own opinion is STUPID.

The witchhunting never stopped. We have more candidates that qualify for being witches and even more witchhunters now. And that's the main sport. That's the cause. Everything else is in assistance of. At least on twitter. N I guess even Tumblr now.

Before any asshole chimes in, I'm not talking about people doing the work. I'm talking about people who think they'd be deemed mute if they don't speak for once.

So I don't care for the opinions of anyone who's not a man on the ground. I just don't. Neither should anybody tbh.

I hope this also answers that other ask someone sent. I'm not attaching it here. But ya.

Also to my anons: ma'am this is an ST blog. Please.

#wewe's askbox #i didn't realise i wrote so much

[cangelala]

Okay, I know a lot of sh!t is going on in the world right now so I am here to say that we need to try and find some facts.

We can't all continuously point fingers at each other just because we are angry at the world. That causes chaos and destruction and there is proof of that throughout history where a country uses something as a scape goat and then attacks them claiming self defense. Understand that in the end the USA is a country that is also struggling to keep itself together right now, so the country likely can't really interfere without there being some whiplash or negative outcomes that come from its own people. Meaning that it will hurt the presidential election coming up which is not something Joe Biden can afford and is why things are a bit complicated right now.

Also note that the US is a country that follows the money even if it means hurting a couple hundred or maybe even thousands of people along the way. Most people seem to know about this which is why we shouldn't be surprised that America is doing what it is doing right now. Thirdly note that the government is corrupt to a point and that many seem to forget that when it is supposed to take weapons that are used to hurt neighboring countries it doesn't. The US had committed several war crimes as well so people shouldn't be so surprised that the 'police officers of the world,' are not doing anything despite the blood shed and chaos that Israel and Gaza war's is causing.

Not to mention the fact that Russia is trying to go back to being the Soviet Union and other countries are starting to prepare for another war, so please be careful. Please note that the economy of the US and other European countries are not doing well meaning that going to war is the necessary evil that may be chosen to help grow and expand to help their financial issues. During both WWI and WWII the US got super rich by selling weapons and other supplies to the counties at war meaning that the US might sit it out so it can get rich and fix its internal issues as well. This is the classic 'history is starting to repeat itself' moment and not the fun kind.

Some people need to also understand that there is a lot of propaganda and anger circling on the Internet as well so please don't blindly follow politicians and people. The media has shown the worst of the world and the ones who want control spread fear amongst the people to help themselves by using the Internet to get more power. I urge you to look at the sources and see what you can find. Some websites are not what they seem so becareful.

I want to believe that my country (the US) has the capacity to do some good in the world but I understand the reality of the world so I try not to get my hopes up too high these days. I do know that protest and civil efforts through disruption can help change things. This means voting and practicing our rights that we should learn in school. I admit that I didn't always get the point of history but after learning more about the world things started to make sense like how understanding your right can cause change in the corrupt system that you are a part of. In other words the world is corrupt but we need to try to use the system we are in to try and fix some of it so things are better in the long run.

I stress voting because in my state, Texas, suffers from a low voting population called, low voter turnout. This is caused by voting restrictions and some requirements that hurt Texan voters. Meaning that the system needs to change for the sake of helping the Texan people's actual voice be heard on the Senate and local government floors. This could mean volunteering to help at the poles to just helping people sign up for their voters card on a Saturday night. That is what being politically active means in the end, helping others understand the political system and supporting it or the new changes.

Sorry I know this is the last thing you want to hear when you come here to escape from the world for a minute but I just thought you should know.

#gaza #usa #politics #texas news #voting

[chaosvents]

i hate election years living with my parents, man. the world is burning, the arctic is melting, the wealth gap is spreading, wages are stagnant, cost of living is skyrocketing, and rights are being taken away and regulated at the whim of old men with hearts full of hate. meanwhile i have to gently talk my mother through an explanation of why it's bad that donald trump said he'd be a dictator, but only on his first day. she also said if biden loses he will also incite an insurrection? and that idk what makes her think that but she also yelled at me for saying trump is a convicted criminal. "so is joe biden" not... not for attempting a coup in response to losing an election though. but she doesn't see the difference. granted my mom kind of revels in her stupidity, i don't really understand her. she's proud of not knowing things, but i'm very much the type of person who is trying to learn every minute of every day, i jokingly call it 'need to know everything disease' and it is a blessing and a curse. the curse is Knowing How Bad It Really Is, obviously. but the blessing is knowing wtf is going on with the world. but she's proud of not knowing anything i'm ever talking about. she's been married to my dad for almost 30 years and she jokes nonstop about how her eyes glaze over when he talks about his work (that he's been doing for 40 years). like... that's not the flex you think it is?

anyway. all rants end up with my mother because she's the root of most of my trauma. my point here is that i was telling her i was anxious about the election and she decided to spend a couple hours arguing. and her point just drives me nuts. basically, she's not voting out of protest ("i'll vote when i see a good option, im 55 and i never have"). no amount of gentle slow explaining can convince her why that's not the protest she thinks it is. her secondary point is that all politicians are vicious criminals who hate you. which, like, yeah, but she uses it as an excuse to play dumb. she's proud of not knowing literally anything at all about politics because the depth and breadth of her knowledge is "politics is boring and politicians are bad". like please. please. the anti-intellectualism is killing me. why do you hate learning.

and that's another thing she does that makes me insane! she's one of those "i make fun of you because i love you" people and bringing it up will just get you a fuckton more teasing. i've spent a decade begging her not to constantly make fun of and bully me because it makes me feel like im in school again. but every time i bring it up she asks "if i didnt tease you how would you know i love you?" as if i wouldn't feel so much more loved if she listened to me. anyway one of the things she teases me about is that i like to learn. i will bring up something cool i learned and she immediately bursts into laughter. i've asked her questions afterwards and she always answers like "i don't know, i wasn't really listening". i'll tell a story and she'll respond with something completely random in a way that shows she wasn't listening even a little bit. that happens especially when im excited and telling good news and she responds with "oh, it'll be okay, hopefully tomorrow is better". like???? okay not only were you not listening, you also see my excitement and joy and assume you need to comfort me? what the fuck is wrong with her.

my sister is a nurse and her and i talk about this all the time. my mom acts stoned constantly. she takes 30-60 seconds to respond to any question and her response is "...what?" at least 1/3 of the time. the rest of the time it's a toss-up whether her response will be a random sentence she pulled out of her ass, or something that has anything to do with the topic being discussed. she doesn't do drugs either! no weed, no pills, not even alcohol. i swear to god she's proud of being stupid and slow. like she's doing it on purpose. she never used to be like this. it makes me want to slap her. wake the fuck up! react to something! join a conversation! learn something about your kid or husband! fuck!

[yesthatssadirichardslove]

Review: The good and the bad of the Golden Globes

LOS ANGELES

Tuesday night doesn’t really scream “glamorous awards show.”

We’ve been trained to expect those on Sundays, when you can spend a lazy evening half-watching E! reporters vamp in formal wear for hours on end, waiting for stars to arrive as you do other things. Sundays are elegant. Tuesdays are not.

But the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association probably didn’t have much say in the matter if they wanted to get the Golden Globe Awards back on broadcast television in time for its 80th anniversary. So, Tuesday it was.

Hollywood, in large part, turned out too, acting as though it wasn’t a rainy weekday in Southern California and as though they hadn’t just a year ago protested the existence of the show. Brad Pitt and Angela Bassett came. So did Steven Spielberg and Ryan Coogler. Everyone played their roles.

There were gowns and suits and bow ties and diamonds, clavicle bones and updos. Eddie Redmayne even had an oversized Carrie Bradshaw-esque satin flower affixed to his suit lapel. On the sodden silver carpet, Laverne Cox swooned over Austin Butler and Michelle Yeoh’s nominated performances, in “Elvis” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” respectively. No one seemed very worried about being there.

How much is the viewing audience — aside from the select few who are both very online and film fans — really thinking about the organization that votes for these awards? Once the lights go down, it’s all about the show that’s right in front them — the stars, the speeches, the laughs. But host Jerrod Carmichael made sure to remind everyone of the ugly truths behind all the glitz and advertising dollars at the start.

In the familiar ballroom of the Beverly Hilton hotel, awards went to good people who gave good, emotional speeches.

Ke Huy Quan, winning the first award of the night for his big comeback role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” warmed hearts shouting out Spielberg for giving him his first opportunity. The cameras were ready to cut back to the director, who cheered on the kid he directed so long ago in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

Jeremy Allen White, who catapulted to fame with “The Bear,” quivered when he mentioned his beloved, late manager Chris Huvane, continuing to say “thank you” as he walked off stage in a daze. “The White Lotus’” Jennifer Coolidge wasn’t the only one reflecting on her own career and life on stage. Even Spielberg, normally stoic, got teary-eyed during his own turn the podium.

The room looked like a dimly lit lounge, with endless champagne on the tables and a piano player decked in white feathers while giving theatrical flourishes to the “Sex and the City” theme and vamping for the cameras.

Bassett and Quinta Brunson learned the hard way that reading acceptance speeches off their phones was perhaps a mistake as family and friends texted them congratulations for their win. Colin Farrell used his own acceptance speech to compliment Ana de Armas’ performance in “Blonde,” as well as all of his “Banshees of Inisherin” collaborators, down to Jenny the donkey. Both he and Yeoh scolded the piano music that started to play them off.

“Shut up, please!” Yeoh said. “I can beat you up.”

It wasn’t for another hour that Carmichael would step up to clarify that the woman shown at the piano, Chloe Flower, was not actually the one playing many a winner off. It was a track, he said.

In many ways, the big film acting winners — Yeoh, Butler, Farrell and Quan — at the Globes looked like a possible rehearsal for those who might take the stage on Oscar night in March. But is that a good thing?

Depends on who you’re asking: For those campaigning, the value is clear. For those watching, well, it might just start to feel redundant. They also came very, very early in the show that somehow kept going past 11 p.m. Eastern (despite the aggressive playing off).

But Carmichael kept the room on edge even well into the show as he came out, some 90 minutes in, holding “Tom Cruise’s three returned Golden Globe statuettes” and suggesting they could be used in exchange for “the safe return of Shelly Miscavige," Scientology leader David Miscavige’s wife who hasn’t been seen in public for years.

“Anyway, from ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ please welcome Glen Powell and Jay Ellis,” Carmichael followed, introducing two Cruise co-stars.

Moments later, Shelly Miscavige was trending on Twitter.

“It’s a good thing Tom’s not here,” Ellis said. It was about something else, technically, but also not.

Later, Carmichael got in an edgy dig in at Will Smith too, saying they gave him the “Rock Hudson award for best portrayal of masculinity on television” during the commercial break.

Carmichael was the live wire that kept the otherwise typical show interesting. WHAT would he say next, everyone wondered? He made Ricky Gervais look tame. Because aside from Carmichael's go-for-broke unpredictability, the 80th Golden Globe Awards was just that: Typical.

There were truly moving moments and truly boring ones too and it stayed past its welcome and got less and less climactic as the night went on. Who made the decision to present most of the major film awards at the beginning of the show? By the time Eddie Murphy finally got his Cecil B. DeMille honor and got in his own dig at Smith, it felt as though the show was already on its fourth ending. But there were still honors, the obligatory HFPA president speech and a shouting Quentin Tarantino to come.

What do we really want in an awards show? It’s the big, existential question that doesn’t just plague the Golden Globes. A little dose of Coolidge, Regina Hall and a tipsy, hungry Mike White never hurts. But the fact remains: It’s hard to throw a comeback party on a Tuesday.

#yesthatssadirichardslove

[roseunspindle]

teleported to a different world - inspired by velinxi.tumblr.com

Percy x Jason x Nico

all three boys get teleported post blood of olympus to a strange world (piper and jason already had a conversation and broke up, will and nico hadn't gotten together yet, percy and annabeth were just ride or die friends

in this world the gods also exist and it's kinda like with the greek/roman thing where they are the same in the they recognize them their kids and what not only it's also more a full ancient world where the gods are known widely and the greek world at least, shudders in fear but also hope at the coming of three children of the three top gods, for this world has been wracked with monster problems and after a massive sacrifice and ceremony lasting weeks, their prayers are answered in the form of Percy, Jaso, and Nico.

Percy in particular is not jazzed at more problems but he and the other two agree they can't leave this world until they at least help. (the goal is to reduce the amount of monsters and start training the young demigods of the world so they can protect it themselves, and live long enough to learn how.

So off they set on adventure after adventure some are actually fun others not so much, but they grow more and more into their powers as they go. And they also grown closer, Jason at first trying to wingman for Nico before realizing that those pained twinges he gets when Nico and Percy are close or share a moment is that he wants to be part of it. (Percy still hasn't been informed of Nico's feelings and thus has zero idea of any of this, but has been pretty pleased that Nico no longer seems to hate him)

being here in a place where there is no mist, magic is closer, and the three boys find themselves reflecting more aspects of their powers, looking a just a little less human. all three get fangs for reasons unknown (percy votes it’s because it looks cool) nicos fingertips turn black and his pallor remains no matter how long he's in the sun, jason's veins mostly run with blood, but sometimes during intense emotions they glow with lightning instead percy's eyes had always looked ocean colored and now waves of color flowed through them.

after nearly a month of non-stop go, either camping or staying in the homes of grateful villagers, the priests and wealthy people who summoned them to the world, bring them to a villa that had been built for them specifically. Percy does have quarters in it, but he mostly stays in the sunken in pool in the center of the villa, or out on the beach nearby. 

Jasons room is open on one end, though thankfully his sleeping/changing area is actually enclosed (he isn’t that much for open air reveals) nico’s area is ground floor with a mall part going underground, on hotter days the other two invade this space to enjoy the coolness.

they do enjoy the place, but still are often flying/shadow traveling/swimming from place to place and often staying near areas they are trying to clear.

their clothes eventually wear out or become far to damaged and they give in, donning the (distressingly short) male chiton common to the world though Nico’s turns black even if the garment he wraps himself in was originally white. 

Percy is very pleased when he finds a brilliant orange material, not quite camp-half blood, but it’ll do, and at his request one of the servant girls at their villa (they tried to protest but the servants themselves had been worried they’d somehow offended, so they gave up) happily embroiders new symbols that represent his adventures on the material. 

Nico is given a length of crimson silk by a merchant he rescues, which he finds he likes, as it looks like a ripple of blood flowing behind him. (yes he’s extra and if he’s doomed to be creepy he will whole heartedly embrace this)

The king of the land their villa is in gifts Jason a purple cloak, wanting to please the son of Zeus (jason keeps pouting and muttering “Jupiter” but doesn’t make too much fuss over the names)

#percy jackson #au #sort of #between world travel #fanfic idea #blathering

[gaycodedvillainy]

I feel like so many of the “whether or not to vote” discourse posts kind of boil down to

Like no shit we do know that the political situation completely sucks, we’re definitely aware

But that doesn’t mean that refusing to take part in it whatsoever is practical or even helpful to anyone provided it somehow was?

We know voting third party being a useless vote is a problem, that doesn’t mean “so we will vote third party because our individual moral views do outweigh the results of refusing to work together”. We know that the electoral college is an elaborate con designed to disenfranchise specific voters, that doesn’t mean that refusing to vote on principle helps those voters either??

As for the “well Trump didn’t have the majority vote last time just the electoral college, but people blamed the election on 3rd party voters and people who refused to vote for either instead of the EC”; the EC isn’t a secret, or a surprise— I am very happy to blame both things, I really don’t care if that hurts feelings? If you can vote, you vote. Yes! Also push to shut the EC down, but refusing to vote does fuck all to shut down the EC

#blah #like unless someone has a real alternative suggestion which voting would actually impede? #but all I’m seeing is the incredibly unlikely possibility of a complete revolution that is somehow invalidated by Biden winning over trump? #like...... please learn that people can vote and ALSO protest #or take other concrete actions #we don’t have some singular political stat like a sad video game character #which voting would eat and render us incapable of anything else......

[didanawisgi]

Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read

BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018

“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .

If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.

By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.

We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…

“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.

During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.

Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.

Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.

Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.

African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.

Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.

Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.

That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.

Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:

But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.

“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”

In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.

Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.

A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”

Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.

Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.

“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.

Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”

He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.

“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”

“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”

In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.

Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that “there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”

But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).

The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.

A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”

In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.

As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.

And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter: 

https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”

#books #black history #history #american history #Guns #civil rights #constitution #supreme court #gun control #martin luther king jr. #dread scott #concealed carry #concealedcarry #everydaycarry #gun confiscation

[marveltrumpshate]

As we said in our closing message at the end of this year’s auction, 2020 has been a year of tremendous change—change that we had no control over and change that we made with our own hands. Many times this year—and the past four years under the Trump administration for those of us in the U.S.—we’ve felt helpless in the face of terrible upheaval. But rather than forcing us to give up, the calamities we’ve witnessed and experienced galvanized us. We’ve seen people volunteer to drop off groceries for immunocompromised neighbors during the pandemic. We’ve seen people donate generously during the worst global economic crisis in modern history. We’ve seen people become more politically active, taking to the streets to protest and voting in record numbers like they are tonight.

And we’ve seen that same passion, that same desire to make change and help people, fuel all the MTH participants this year.

We weren’t sure what the turnout would be like. Would people have the time or energy to sign up as creators? Would people be willing to donate, and would they have the means to do so?

Our worries proved to be baseless.

This year, 273 “Marvel”-ous creators came forward to offer 416 auctions.

And this year, we raised…

That’s just over $11,000 more than the MTH 2019 total. 😮💖🎉

We’re going to channel Beast here and exclaim, “Oh my stars and garters!”

The race started off with a bang, with bids racking up quickly on the first day. Even so, we were shocked when we matched last year’s total, which we weren’t sure we could do ($27,193.91 was beyond our wildest expectations), and then just ran right past it before the auction even ended!

It’s been an incredible journey, with the mod chat pinging at all hours with excited gifs, effusive heart emojis, and inarticulate keyboard smashes as we expressed our love for the wonderful people in our fandom. It’s been very hard not blurting out the milestones as we reached them when we desperately wanted to share these amazing results with you all.

Creators, we couldn’t have started this auction without you. We loved seeing so many veteran creators sign up again and were pleasantly surprised by how many new faces showed up to the party.

Bidders, as crazy as it sounds, most donations were small ones (including some of those crazily high winning bids—several were the result of people pooling their five dollars together!). This has been consistently the case since MTH began. It just goes to show how much of an impact you can have when you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Each donation has a ripple effect, and enough ripples can cause a wave. You matter, and you can make a difference.

We also owe our success to our amazing signal boosters. There can’t be an auction without any participants, so to every fandom community Tumblr that agreed to reblog our posts, every Discord server mod who let us post announcements, and every person who shared our posts and encouraged their fandom friends to sign up and/or bid, thank you so much! Together, we reached hundreds of fantastic creators and bidders from all corners of the Marvel fandom, many of whom we didn’t know and some who were hearing about us for the first time.

Thank you all. We’re so touched by the massive number of people who donated above and beyond their pledged amount, creators who took on multiple auctions and offered multiple winner slots, and bidders who accepted their second-place wins with such eagerness! We also had people make donations in the spirit of MTH even though they didn’t win an auction, which was beyond generous.

We’ve already seen how our donations are changing the world for the better. To name a few examples:

Partners In Health is on the ground testing, providing care, assisting local government response, and mobilizing community health workers in countries where the mortality rate for COVID-19 is expected to be much more severe than those with well-resourced health systems

The Southern Poverty Law Center raised $10 million to fight voter suppression in the South, with some great successes in Florida

World Central Kitchen has purchased over 10 million meals from small, independent restaurants in 400 cities, putting $105 million and counting directly back into the economy and helping both struggling businesses and people who need food the most during the pandemic

We’re sure that in the months and years to come, we’ll see even more wonderful results.

In addition to the astounding amount of money we were able to raise for charity, MTH was successful in other ways. We strove to be as inclusive as possible, determined to make this event a fandom-wide effort. Considering that the auctions covered over 369 unique platonic and romantic relationships (if we include “all ships/gen”-inclusive relationships, this number is even higher) across 31 universes within the Marvel multiverse, we can safely say that we accomplished our goal.

This spirit of inclusion also applies to our auctions and charities. Every one of 416 auctions was bid on, and every one of our 30 supported charities received donations. We’re in awe of your commitment to supporting all our creators and charities and thrilled that you spread all the love around, bidders!

Here’s our breakdown of the donations (click to enlarge the image and hover to see the donation amount per charity):

We’ve also listed the amount raised per charity on our 2020 auction results page.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for helping us turn our third Marvel Trumps Hate auction into such a fantastic experience. We cherish every single message of love and support that we received and continue to receive on our Discord server and through DMs, Tumblr messages, emails, tweets, etc. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

To remember or learn why we created this auction in the first place, please check out our 2018 “thank you” post to all of our creators, bidders, signal boosters, and supporters.

If you’d like to stay updated on all of the 2020 Marvel Trumps Hate fills, follow us and/or check out the “mth 2020” tag on our Tumblr. You’ll also be able to find works posted on AO3 in our Marvel Trumps Hate 2020 collection and links to fills in our Discord server, which you can join to brainstorm prompts, chat about fills, and find out about other fandom events.

Thank you once again to everyone who volunteered their services, time, money, and platforms to spread the word. Though we may sometimes wonder how much of a difference we can make, it’s moments like this that show that every bit helps, no matter the size of our contribution. With that in mind, we’d like everyone to keep the following quote close to their hearts as we move forward and find ways to make the world a better place, to remember these words when they’re feeling lost or small.

“Purpose is the essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.” — Chadwick Boseman

Think about your purpose. Think about what you can do while you’re here. Know that you matter.

And with that, MTH 2020 has officially come to a close. We’re so beyond grateful to you all, and we can’t wait to see all of your fanworks over the coming year!

Lots of love and gratitude, Your 2020 MTH mods

#marvel trumps hate #mth 2020 #announcement

[michaels-blackhat]

So You’re Feeling White Guilt and You Don’t Know What To Do

I’m not going to rehash the most recent Roswell New Mexico fandom news. I’m not going to rehash any of the difficult and necessary conversations surrounding race and racism that have been happening over the last week. They are important, they shine an important light on fandom racism, and they have caused many to reflect on their own unconscious bias and how it has manifested itself in fandom. That’s important. That is the constant work of an ally: to reflect on your bias and your actions and take steps to inform yourself and do better. As participants in a racist society and a culture that tries to say that racism is only an overt, obvious thing, we must always take the time to listen to others and change our own behavior.

This post isn’t necessarily about that either. It’s about how you can do other, small things, for yourself to help a community and individuals who are continuously mistreated, whose suffering is continuously erased, and whose culture is continuously stolen. Political involvement is always an option, but it’s also not always possible. I know for myself, I work two jobs that leave me with 14 hours days multiple times a week, and only one day off a week to relax, do household chores, and prepare for my grad school classes. I can exercise my right to vote, right to assembly, etc. but sometimes doing more isn’t a viable option.

So what else can I do?

Below I have accumulated links to different relief funds, bail funds for protesters, language programs, native artist collectives and stores, musicians, and conservation project.. Some of the links will take you to a larger project that you can explore. Some of the links will be for direct donations. This is not exhaustive. This is limited to what I’m able to find and authenticate to the best of my ability. But I wanted to put this out into the world, as an example of different ways you can support people, cultures, and communities. I invite anyone to add on to the list, particularly people who are Native American. 

Special thanks to @jocarthage​ for being an amazing resource and adding to my already long list. And @litwitlady​ for the bookstore link. Additionally, I was writing this and realized how long this got, so I started limiting to two or three links per area. Please, add on.

Relief Funds:

An article from Navajo Times that highlights different Coronavirus relief funds, including the Navajo Department of Health, John Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, relief for families and children, and Food Baskets for Elderly.

https://navajotimes.com/coronavirus-updates/relief-for-coronavirus/

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Bail Fund:

A thread on the O’odham land & water protectors: https://twitter.com/LaikenJordahl/status/1315707808470503427?s=20

And the bail fund: https://t.co/yzyDnEi0x6?amp=1

Generally, the National Bail Fund Network’s twitter page is a good place to go to keep up about bail funds for protesters for many leftist causes. They also help with immigration detention and the cause to end money bail in general. https://twitter.com/bailfundnetwork?lang=en

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Language Programs:

https://www.firstnations.org/projects/native-language-immersion-initiative/ : The Native Language Immersion Initiative aims to build the capacity of and directly support Native American language-immersion and culture-retention programs. They work with the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with support from the Lannan Foundation, Kalliopeia Foundation and the NoVo Foundation. The linked website has the list of grantees from the previous years, so you can go and explore the different language programs that have benefitted from the initiative. The NLII aims to support the cultural and linguistic preservation of all Indigenous Americans, including Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian cultures.

The website also allows you to explore their programs, learn more about topics such as environmental justice within native communities, and donate directly.

Duolinguo has short courses in both Navajo and Hawai‘i. They’re not perfect, but they’re a good starting point. Spending some time getting used to the sounds and cadences can be really grounding in the realities of the language and grammar (and if everyone who read our fics downloaded it, it would give Duolingo a strong indicator of interest in these languages, which might encourage them to invest in making them full courses).

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Art & Clothing & Holiday Presents:

Art and clothing are grouped together, as a lot of the websites feature both.

Beyond Buckskin: https://shop.beyondbuckskin.com/

A shop/collective started by a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe. They have a variety of products and you can learn more about their individual artist. They also have events, news, and a lot of cool things to explore on their website. 

+their buy native list: 

http://www.beyondbuckskin.com/p/buy-native.html

b.Yellowtail: https://byellowtail.com/pages/about-us

The clothes are designed by Bethany Yellowtail, a Northern Cheyenne & Crow fashion designer. The art and jewelry are made by hand by a collective of Native Americans, First Nations, and Indigenous creatures throughout North America.

SheNative: https://www.shenative.com/

A shop that primarily focuses on leatherwork, but does have other products as well. The aim of the company is to empower Indigenous women, so Idigenous women work on all levels of the manufacturing of the products. Additionally, they donate at least 10% of profits towards causes and charities that aim specifically to help Indigenous women.

Etkie: https://etkie.com/

This collective of Native American artists all hail from New Mexico. They specialize in beaded cuffs, all of which are gorgeous. Personal note, I very much want the Dawn Glass Cuff.

There are a lot of people who sell Native American art who are not, in fact, Native American people. Here are some sources:

The Indian Pueblo Store is owned and operated by New Mexico’s 19 Pueblo tribes. Find our physical location at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque https://www.indianpueblostore.com

The bookstore in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian has one of the best collections of books about Native American life, by Native American authors, anywhere we’ve found (if you become a member for $25 a year, you get their excellent quarterly magazine) https://americanindian.si.edu/store

Weirdly for a museum named for a man famous for playing a white cowboy in American movies, the Gene Autry museum in Los Angeles has one of the other really good collections of books by Native American authors on modern Native American life, as well as historical books: https://shop.theautry.org/collections/books

I haven’t been, but the Heard Museum gets recommended a lot and their shop has a lot of authentic Native American pieces: https://www.heardmuseumshop.com/

Birchbark Native Arts seems to have an extensive collection: https://www.birchbarknativearts.com and is associated with the bookstore mentioned below

Note from JoCarthage: In 2016 I drove to all 58 counties in California and started my collection of books on Native American tribes living and working in California, both as research for what I thought might be a book and because I was curious. A lot of the books I found are not on Amazon, you can only buy them in reservation book stores or National Park bookstores or little county museum bookstores. When the world opens back up again, that is a good process I have found for building my own understandings. 

It’s not a perfect system, but when you’re shopping, look for the term “Authentic Native American artworks” and a seal like this one; here is a longer guide to buying Native American art:

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Music:

Spotify & website links are provided. This is also limited to what I know and already listen to.

A Tribe Called Red: Website: http://atribecalledred.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2jlWF9ltd8UtoaqW0PxY4z

Mary Youngblood: Website: http://www.maryyoungblood.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0pRrf0i6X4uUIdzYrA2mDz

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Website http://buffysainte-marie.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5exO2eW84QucBhrRhcK76x

[Video: A Tribe Called Red’s “Burn Your Village to the Ground”]

Books:

Based on the theory that the best information is closest to the source, all of the books below are written by Native American authors; the bookshops are owned by Native America booksellers. 

Bookshops:

Birchbark Books, a bookshop in Minneapolis: https://birchbarkbooks.com/ They also have art, jewelry, and community events. When available, the links for the books below are provided through the store’s website.

Book Recommendations:

Nonfiction and hilarious: Custer Died for Your Sins, by Vine Deloria Jr (Standing Rock Sioux): https://birchbarkbooks.com/all-online-titles/custer-died-for-your-sins

Poetry: New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe): https://birchbarkbooks.com/all-online-titles/new-poets-of-native-nations

Novel (murder mystery): Chenoo, by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki): https://www.oupress.com/books/14415530/chenoo

Poetry: When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee Nation): https://birchbarkbooks.com/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=9713772&A=SearchResult&SearchID=11528255&ObjectID=9713772&ObjectType=27

Art book: First American Art, Edited by Bruce Bernstein and Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree and member of the Siksika Nation) https://americanindian.si.edu/store/books-and-products#1845

(The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook: Recipes from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian by Richard Hetzler (Not a Native American person but the recipes reflect a huge range of modern Native American recipes and are worth cooking through ) https://birchbarkbooks.com/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=9685880&A=SearchResult&SearchID=11528257&ObjectID=9685880&ObjectType=27)

Here is a selection of children’s books, YA, memoir and biography, and Native American fiction and poetry, Native studies, and Native language

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Diné and other Native American actors’ accounts to follow:

Why include fun social media stuff: because we’re humans and we like nice things. It’s very hard to keep learning about something that challenges our whiteness and privileges if everything we read and consume is painful and grim. It also fundamentally limits the stories we consume about modern Native American lives if all we do is wallow. So read good poetry, cook recipes that are shared freely, follow pretty actors on Instagram. When Jo went through her house to find the above book recommendations, 4 of them were on her Native American section, one in her poetry section, and one in her cookbook section. Native American stories and food and life are part of modern American life and integrated them into your bookshelves and menus and IG scrolling is a good way to stay aware and learn more osmotically.

Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (kanien’kehá:ka from ⁣⁣⁣ kahnawà:ke mohawk territory⁣⁣⁣) https://www.instagram.com/kdeveryjacobs/?hl=en

Tatanka Means https://www.instagram.com/tatankameans/?hl=en

Jay Tavare https://www.instagram.com/jaytavare/?hl=en

Forrest Goodluck seems to not be active on social media, but he’s worth keeping an eye out for https://twitter.com/forrestgoodluck?lang=en

Check out more here, from pocfansmatter https://pocfansmatter.tumblr.com/post/632180141361119232/my-favorite-native-american-men

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News Sources:

Note: none of these are perfect. They all have their own biases, foci, and weirdnesses. But if you subscribe by email to a few of them, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what issues are important, generally.

Native America Calling: https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/

Navajo Times: https://navajotimes.com/

Indian Country Today: https://indiancountrytoday.com/

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Conservation:

A petition to close Mt Rushmore and to return public lands in the Black Hills to the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations). 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-close-mt-rushmore-and-return-all-public-lands-in-the-black-hills-to-the-oceti-sakowin

From the site: “Standing in solidarity with our ancestors, families, our allies, and the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations), we are calling on Director Bernhardt and Representative Deb Haaland to close Mt. Rushmore and return all Public lands in the Black Hills to the Oceti Sakowin as negotiated in the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, as Indigenous treaties are the supreme law of the land.”

The Kumeyaay people are currently protesting against the illegal destruction of their sacred lands to build the border wall. You can keep up with their work and support them directly through their twitter account.

https://twitter.com/kumeyaayprotest?lang=en

The Native American Land Conservancy aims to reacquire Native American land, particularly in Southern California, to preserve and protect sacred sites and areas. 

The group has a mix of board members from a variety of tribes, along with members who are not affiliated with a tribe but have a focus and background in environmental conservation.

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Thank you for sticking with us through this whole list. It’s long, yes, but it does not even begin to show even a small percentage of places and artists you can support.

And as for what to do about your white guilt? Live with it. It’s not going to help anyone if you express your guilt continuously. It’s not going to help anyone if you push it aside. Live with it. We benefit from a racist system and we should not forget it. Do what you can to help others, lend your voice in support of others. And for fuck’s sake remember that it’s not about us.

#resources #native american #Tyler Blackburn #native american artists #indigenous peoples #I'm sorry I actually have no idea how to tag this #but also i'm not sorry for tagging the actor because I think it's a thing that people who maybe want to avoid the truth should see

[ikipin]

I haven’t been addressing the issue in USA yet so here we go. I’m talking to the other white people right now.

While retweeting information and raving on social media is really good, and one way to spread info, it is not ’activism’ per se, in my opinion. You pressing the retweet button once is not an act of activism, you haven’t done shit yet.

I’ve also seen so much false information, clout chasing and fear mongering going around on twitter, so much so that it is starting to take the focus off the actual movement, the injustice, the pain, anger and suffering of black people.

Tons of people I know and people here where I live (Finland) have been posting the same one screenshot/same picture on social media saying BLM, but I just know it is merely to satisfy their own sense of moral nagging at them.

They post the picture and call it a day, thinking that ”whew, now I’ve done my part” — and when someone accuses them of racism they can just show the receipts saying ”I can’t be racist, I posted this BLM pic back in May, see?”

I think this is not a fight to be fought only on social media but mainly on the streets and with our own daily actions.

As a white privileged person I feel it is also not my place to talk over the black people raising their voices and seeking justice in this situation,

but rather support them from the back by educating myself on the matters, donating funds and signing petitions, voting in elections to make a change in my country, and by actively and aggressively correcting and shutting down any racist behavior I witness within my own community, in my friend group or at my workplace. Speak up against your racist peers or otherwise you are a coward.

And again, sharing things on social media is GOOD, spread this shit like wildfire and raise awareness!!

But I hope everyone who posts about this stuff on social media actually does something to help, and is actively supporting the cause in their daily lives. Actions mean so much more than words. Words without actions mean nothing. [end rant]

Also, my blog is a 100% safe place of everyone regardless of race, religion, sexuality or gender identity. You can take a break here.

Protecting your mental health is so important during these times, and if you get your daily serotonin boost by looking at my drawings, then please do scroll through my art tag and have a moment to relax.

Stay safe fellows, followers, everyone. No justice, no peace. For all lives to matter, black lives should matter first. I’m with you in this fight. ✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

AN EXTENSIVE LIST OF INFO AND RESOURCES FOR PROTESTERS, SUPPORTERS AND THOSE AFFECTED

EDIT: After overwhelming support received, Minnesota Freedom Fund has asked to donate to other locations!

#BLACK LIVES MATTER #I SUPPORT YOU #i will also punch a racist in the face if needed #I hope this makes sense #it just bugs me that so many finnish people post the BLM pic and think theyre some revolution starters #step back karen #it’s not our time right now #long post