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leiazsolo · 10 days

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Regarding Tommy (AKA Stop hating him for the “Begins” episodes)

So I’ve been seeing a TON of hate for Tommy specifically because of his behaviour in the ‘Begins’ episodes and how he “shouldn’t be forgiven” so I’m getting fed up and decided to to a TIMELINE of Tommy & why we don’t need to be spoon fed his ‘redemption’ because we saw it across 10-ish years of flashbacks in the Begins episodes and can learn to understand that some stuff can just be implied with storytelling rather than treating the audience like babies and spelling it out for them. I will be starting with his first chronological appearance NOT his first on-screen appearance.

Starting Approx. 2005-2006 2x12 “Chimney Begins” now I’m not sure exactly what dates the episode here but google tells me it’s set around here, If I’m wrong let me know.

This was the big episode of Tommy being an asshole, I will not deny he was an asshole. He was one of the primary assholes of this episode along with the old captain. Let’s look at this episode with what we know about Tommy now, not what we knew then.

Tommy was a closeted gay man in a male-led, white-led field (presumably gay, we haven’t had his label yet) working under a captain we know is Homophobic, Sexist, and Racist. He also was a white man in a white male field back in 2005, prejudice was still a huge thing in 2005 (and still is but we’re not here to talk about that) and this episode shows this well, because it had to fit with the ‘times’. Tommy was an aggressor to begin with Im not going to deny this, but do you know who was also there, standing by and watching the rest of the 118 treat Chimney like shit for MONTHS? Eli! Yes lovey Eli who eventually helped get Chim into the field and let him stay with him in Boston. Yes he ended up being a good guy, but that doesn’t excuse the months he spent staying quiet watching the 118 mistreat Chim. You’ll see this theme pop up again later, funnily enough. Eventually we see Tommy and Chim become civil, after Chimney saves his life. He goes on to befriend Chimney, telling him his favourite movie is Love Actually (that’s fruity) amongst other things.

Fast forward to somewhere between 2009-2010 2x09 “Hen Begins” aka the next time we see Tommy chronologically and the first time we meet him in the show. We know a rough timeline as Sal says his girlfriend took him to see the new Twilight movie, and they reference the Edward vs Jacob, which means it’s most likely New Moon or Eclipse as that was more heavily a marketing thing for those two than the first one. This is also the first time Tommy is implied to be gay (He doesn’t deny the accusation and instead jokes about kissing Sal/Chimney) Now at this point in time I know this probably was not planned, but is something to look back at.

Tommy is this episode steps back from being an aggressor, he is still working under Gerrard and still closeted. He is still a part of the problem, but other than being present in the episode and in the scenes where Sal and Gerrard acted as aggressors, he didn’t actually contribute verbally to the mistreatment of Hen. The primary aggressor for Hen was Gerrard and remained to be Gerrard throughout the episode even when her co-workers saw her doing good things. And going back to Eli in Chimneys episode, guess who was also a bystander to Hens mistreatment, filling a similar role to Hen that Eli filled? CHIMNEY. He stood back for also presumably months, didn’t defend Hen against their co-workers, and just let what happened to him happen to her. Then, at the end of the episode it’s revealed multiple members of her team submitted complaints against their captain for the mistreatment of Hen, I’m willing to bet that he was one of those people, him, Chim, and even potentially Sal as he was less of an ass by the end. By the end of her episode we know they are now friendly at work and he thinks she’s a good firefighter.

Skip forward to 2014-ish, 2x16 “Bobby Begins Again.” We immediately see the team meshing, Chim, Hen, Tommy, and even Sal. 9 Years have passed since he met Chimney, and 4-ish since Hen and it’s implied they’re a friendly unit, Tommy is still closeted, and has been working under a rotating number of captains (six to be exact), but has clearly become a better, and more accepting person, the world is changing and he isn’t being held back with the times. He goes out for drinks with Hen & Chimney, laughs with them, has an overall good time being their friend and seeming enjoying working under Bobby for another 4 years, we even see them smash his face into a cake at a surprise leaving party they’ve thrown him. We know Buck took his place at the 118 which was not long before S1 began, so we’re assuming he left the 118 2017/2018.

This is the last time we see Tommy until 7x03, presumably set in 2023/2024 “Capsized”, a whole canonical 16-18 years after we first meet him, and 6 years since he left the 118. In those 6 years we know he:

A) is still friendly with Chimney, we know from 2x14 when he phones him to drop the fire retardant on the house. He is also mentioned to still be in contact in 3x16

B) Has come out/discovered his sexuality.

C) Is obviously not bigoted, or at least as much as he was back in 2005-ish.

In terms of Hen we can assume they haven’t really stayed “friends” since Tommy left, as she states in Capsized that she forgot he worked there. She worked with him for 8-ish years, I’ve worked with people for that length of time and don’t talk to them now, doesn’t mean I hate them, we just don’t really have reason to talk anymore. I just think their friendship was more a “we’re work friends” kind of relationship rather than a “we’re in each other’s lives” one, which is a completely normal and valid relationship. Whereas with Chim we know they’ve remained at least acquaintances to chat, and friends enough that Tommy would risk both his life and job to save Bobby.

At this point in the timeline it’s been approximately CANONICALLY 16-18 years since we met Tommy, and the fandom is still asking for his character to be held accountable for things he said all those years ago, when clearly in the canon of the show has been forgiven. At this point in the show I really don’t think we need to be spoonfed this narrative, it would feel clunky and weird to see an apology on screen for something that’s clearly been addressed off screen. It would frankly be a waste of the limited airtime we have this season.

I also think it’s super important to remember that Tommy wasn’t planned that far in advance, we know he was bought back by Minear because he wanted the person who was part of Bucks coming out to be someone the audience had already met before & Lou was both available and willing to do it. If they had been planning this exact storyline since season 2, maybe Tommy would have been portrayed differently, who knows.

I get we love Buddie and we want Buddie so much, I am not and never will jump ship from Buddie, I love that Tommy is Bucks first boyfriend, I just hope Eddie gets to be his last.

I’m also super glad we’re getting Bucks coming out separately from Eddies potential future coming out, I am on the (seemingly) small majority that thinks that would have been way too much to happen all at once, and also the characters deserve to have their own coming out stories not to be lumped together.

so yeah. TLDR; Tommy has evolved over 16-18 years, 10 years of which we saw across the Begins episodes, and if we want to be spoonfed his accountability for his behaviour in the begins episode, we should also be asking the same from Eli and Chim.

#Tommy Kinard #911 abc #911 season 7 #bucktommy #evan buckley #911 #9-1-1 #9 1 1 abc #buck x tommy #listen i’m just fed up bc this happens with everyone Buck or Eddie dates #if you wanna dislike bucktommy go for it i’m not saying you have to like them #or even like tommy #i’m just saying you need to just be honest about your reasons for disliking him #and you don’t have to forgive him that’s fine you do you #but you can’t act like the characters haven’t

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alwynsalps · 7 days

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So obviously after the Joe breakup shit changed we had that ratty twatty and then suddenly travis. Like ratty twatty first of all made it seem like you know this person is like horrible yet you choose to be with him? Everyone called her (rightfully) out I feel like cause he is really a twat of a person and the whole ice spice collab to basically "save" Matty twattys image. I also felt like it was unfair of her fans to force her to break up with him I mean it's her life. And Joe during this time went through so much shit after the break up I remember he was papped and everyone made fun of how skinny he is and how horrible he looks (he had bags under his eyes on the photo) which is actually sad cause he lost his grandmother I think during that time and people were genuinely saying disgusting things and saying mother is looking so much better etc etc while Joe was having a downwards spiral. Again I understand no one knew his depression was that bad but fuck swifties can be more kind.

Exit ratty twatty enter travesty lord this man gives me the ick.

Swifties are blinded by their relationship but he is really not a good dude. I mean that video live of him pushing his coach and yelling? Videos online of him being openly racist, being a trump supporter (and also swifties are dumb they think bc he got vaccinated and bent the knee for black lives matter he is somehow Democrat?) honey trump is vaccinated as well. And just because he supported blm does not make him a good person. He was PAID to do all that performative shit.

I mean she has millions of fans, thousands of young girls thinking the blatant red flags of travesty is hot and shit. Tells me he can push her around too. (not to mention he supported his abusive friend that literally hit his wife.)

And it feels like she's forcing travesty tbh? Like girlie you wanted the art to be about you yet you let some man overshadow it. Because truly that's what's happening like swifties are more into him at this point and the relationship they made up in their head as Taylor.

This is where I got annoyed and took a step back. Each time they were seen Joe got thousands and thousands of hate just for what being introverted?

Then they attacked Emma (Joe's Co worker) for a cheating rumor THEY MADE UP and the shit they said were so genuinely disgusting she had to switch off her comments.

Then Ai audio dropped about Joe abusing Taylor and Ai videos circled making it seem like Joe is a cheater when he is NOT. fuck they even trended a sex scene with that Alison chick he worked with saying he said Alison (her real name) and not her character's name when he DID NOT. It was in the fucking series! This woman got slut shamed so bad she turned off comments too for literally WORKING with Joe. Swifties literally spread shit around that he cheated on Taylor with Emma and Alison when he didn't! And the fucking best of all Taylor was on the set while filming conversations with friends. She most likely saw it IN PERSON and they chose to say all this genuinely disgusting shit about Alison who I've learned is actually a pretty good person.

Here I got genuinely disgusted.

So okay again I understand that Taylor can't control all her fans but her silence while her cult mass harrases people?

Whats insane to me is Joe. Like the guy got so much hate because SHE CHOSE to lead fans on. When she announced ttpd everyone thought the title relates to Joe and Paul mescal

Joe got mass hate

Then the secret songs at eras being about cheating

Joe got death threats

ALL TO BE AN ALBUM ABOUT THE FUCKING SEWER RAT SHE CAN'T GET OVER?!

she literally took ALL the hate against Joe *knowing* she's releasing an album dissing her 6 weeks situationship is genuinely disgusting. I cannot fathom it.

And AND the only thing she could say about Joe is dude did not want to marry her bc he was severely depressed WHICH IS NOT HER PLACE TO TALK ABOUT HIS STRUGGLES?

like I am SORRY this man wants to d word next to her and she just didn't care and wanted to fuck Matty?

Her partner, that got her through her darkest times BTW, did not deserve this.

She let all this mass harrasment just happen to market ttpd. Like genuinely what the actual fuck. 2 innocent women Emma and Alison were attacked and called sluts for genuinely existing and breathing the same air as Joe. And the proof he did not cheat is in her OWN lyrics. (which swifties cannot seem to fucking read bc they'd rather attack Joe than admit this album is about a sewer nazi rat)

The hate Joe got made me cry. The disgusting things they said about him. Swifties literally threatening to bash his head in with a hammer or that he needs to hang himself and they'd enjoy seeing his body swinging from the roof.

Genuinely why would any person say this to anyone at any time?

And they made fun of depression like. What. The. Fuck. Just because Joe might not see it does not mean other people with crippling depression won't.

Oh and a side note she's still bringing up Kim on albums? Not just Kim Kim's CHILD?! leave the kid alone.

Genuinely feel like the most honest Taylor we got was during lover (a time which Joe helped her voice her political opinions and shit) and idk I just feel cheated on?

My whole life I've defended Taylor against everyone and I genuinely feel like she's showing her true colors now being with travesty and ratty and I cannot fathom how this is the same Taylor I'm seeing now as she was like a few years ago.

And it's not just Joe that got death threats BTW. When midnights came out and everyone gave honest reviews cause that evil Jack antonof little gay man ruined the production there were journalists literally getting so much death threats its insane.

Taylor gets (rightfully) called out and fans can't handle it.

She needs to address them ASAP. All these parasocial freaks. The people harrasing Joe. The people literally only seeing Taylor as a breeder for travestys children.

I can't genuinely I can't this is not how I want to feel about Taylor I mean I gave her my youth I looked up to her so much I feel so disappointed in the way she's acting yk?

Yes maybe she can't do jack shit about swifties but she can try.

And her staying quiet over Palestine? Her voice her one post about a ceasefire could change EVERYTHING.

idk at this point I can't stand to be around Taylor.

#anti taylor swift #free joe alwyn #joe alwyn #Swifties dni #anti travis kelce

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elitehanitje · 18 days

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My block button is working overdrive, both on Tumblr and Twitter. You should use it too, guys. Block me if you want to, seriously. I don’t wanna see you on my dash saying things like “I’ve seen fight worse that’s this! People who complain about it are pussies!” So apparently it’s okay to fight as long as the fight isn’t dangerous. If you think attacking your co-worker and your boss is some sort of a badass moment, instead of using a common sense approach, then damn, please go away. All of y’all are defending a violent man because you don’t like a company and the people who work at that company. A lot of you even cheered when someone got manhandled. Then a lot of you have never lived with an aggresive person who would choke you and then laughed about it because “it’s just a little choke”. I pray someday you’ll never experience that.

I am a big supporter of someone who’d punch a NAZI or a racist or a homophobe or a transphobe or a bully. But this ain’t it - far from it. This is an aggressor who think that somebody needs to get choke when they disagreed with them. I’ve seen this cult before. I was in it (in a different fandom) and I’m glad that I am out. I may still have a long way to go in changing my ways (of being a fan of problematic people/wrestler), but this is a blatant evidence that you can’t avoid.

#AEW #All Elite Wrestling #All Elite #AEW Dynamite #AEW Rampage #AEW Collision #ROH #Ring of Honor #Tony Khan #Samoa Joe #CM Punk #Jack Perry #Jungle Boy

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dailymanners · 7 months

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If someone opens up to you and shares a story or vents about a time they were mistreated or disrespected, now is the time to listen and show compassion. It's not the time to one-up or flex about how you think you would have handled the situation. It's also not the time to lecture them on how you think they should have responded, or to shame them if you don't think their reaction was adequate or assertive enough.

For example, your friend opens up to you about the time he tried to have a nice dinner out with his partner, but restaurant staff were being racist/xenophobic and refusing to seat them, so he and his partner just left and found somewhere else to eat. Now is not the time to flex "Well if that were ME I wouldn't have just taken it and left, I would have totally put the staff in their place and not tolerated that!"

Or, for example your co-workers tells you about how she went to the grocery store last night and right as she was about to check out someone aggressively cut her in line, now is not the time to shame her / put her down with a response like "What, and you just took that? Oh come on you can't be such a pushover!"

First of all, you don't actually know how you would have responded in these situations. You don't know if you would have actually frozen or fawned in these situations. Many people do, even if they don't think they would. And that's okay. People don't just decide to freeze or fawn, it's an automatic reaction. Stopping behaviors like freezing or fawning can take years of therapy, not just a belittling lecture from a friend or co-worker.

Or even if someone didn't freeze or fawn, they just made the conscious choice to avoid a confrontation. That's also okay, and not your place to shame them. People can have all sorts of reasons for wanting to avoid a confrontation, such as not feeling it's safe, or feeling like it will just make the situation worse.

Second of all, responses like this can come across as belittling and generally insensitive. Even if you don't mean it that way, it can come across as though you're trying to insinuate that you think the other person is lesser than you for not reacting how you think you would have reacted. When someone has already dealt with being mistreated the last thing they need to is be lectured or put down, it's rubbing salt in the wound to respond insensitively when someone opens up to you about dealing with mistreatment.

Instead, show compassion. Tell them they didn't deserve to be treated that way, and what the other person did was wrong. If they're being mistreated by a boss or co-worker, kindly remind them that they have the right to report the behavior. Or if they're being mistreated by a classmate or teacher, kindly remind them that they can speak to someone at the school about it.

You can kindly remind them that in the future they're allowed to stand up for themselves in these situations, if they choose to, but don't lecture them or shame them for not responding how you think they should have.

#manners #politeness #courtesy #good manners #etiquette

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she-is-ovarit · 1 year

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Listen to sex workers, except for the ones who criticize prostitution and the sex trade and openly describe the trauma caused by their exploitation - they just weren't a right fit for the job.

Listen to the biologists, psychologists, and neurologists, except for the ones who publish credible studies against the idea of brain sex and remark that, actually, a person cannot change their sex - there still exists alternative facts.

Listen to gay and lesbian people, except for the ones who refuse to have sex with trans people, dislike being amorphously referred to as "queer" or find it retraumatizing, and argue that sexual orientation pertains to sex and not gender identity - they're just genital fetishists and sexual predators.

Listen to trans people and gender dysphoric people, except for the ones who don't believe that identifying as something really makes someone something, that sex can't be changed, and that pronoun use determines identity - they have internalized transphobia.

Listen to women, except for the ones who don't believe that "woman" is just a social category and that oppression and discrimination on the axis of biological sex exists - they're just terfs and similar to Nazis.

Listen to intersex people, except for the ones who prefer the term "person with a disorder of sex development", are bothered by dyadic trans people co-opting terminology such as AFAB/AMAB, and speak out against trans surgeries and HRT being done to kids - they're just extremists.

Listen to gender nonconforming people, except for the ones who maintain that their style, nonconforming mannerisms, and/or same-sex attraction does not mean they're not their sex. They're just eggs, they'll turn into trans people soon.

Listen to Latino people, except for the ones who speak out against "Latinx" being coined as a term and a reflection of Euro-American colonialism - they're just traditionalists.

Listen to black people, except for the ones who take issue with "blacklivesmatter" being consistently refocused to "black trans lives matter", consider the argument that female sex-segregated spaces are akin to Jim Crow Laws as racist, and point out that trans murder rates - in which most of these murdered people are people of color - are being used by mostly white trans-identifying male people in arguments for self-serving intentions. They're just transphobic.

Listen to Native people, except for the ones who indicate that "two spirit" doesn't mean what white trans people think it means and worry about Euro-American colonialism further appropriating their culture and language - they're just a minority and are behind the times.

Listen to Jewish people, except the ones who continuously stress that comparing the disagreement with gender ideology to Naziism and genocide is deeply disrespectful, often anti-semitic, and minimizes the experiences of victims of genocide and their families. They're probably not even Jewish.

Listen to Marxists and feminists, except for the ones who point out that female people are treated as a reproductive and sexual resource based upon sex. They're transphobic.

Listen to intersectional feminists, except for the ones who point out that intersectionality that isn't female-focused isn't feminism. They're just terfs.

Don't listen to desisters/detransitioners, except for the ones who maintain the narrative that receiving SRS or HRT did no harm to them or that they're desisting due to 'gender affirming care' working for them. The rest were just cis people in denial of their own gender identity.

#tangent #gender ideology #culture #counter-culture #genderism #gender critical #gender critical feminism

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racefortheironthrone · 22 days

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OK, I'll bite - what's the deal with the United Farm Workers? What were their strengths and weaknesses compared to other labor unions?

It is not an easy thing to talk about the UFW, in part because it wasn't just a union. At the height of its influence in the 1960s and 1970s, it was also a civil rights movement that was directly inspired by the SCLC campaigns of Martin Luther King and owed its success as much to mass marches, hunger strikes, media attention, and the mass mobilization of the public in support of boycotts that stretched across the United States and as far as Europe as it did to traditional strikes and picket lines.

It was also a social movement that blended powerful strains of Catholic faith traditions with Chicano/Latino nationalism inspired by the black power movement, that reshaped the identity of millions away from asimilation into white society and towards a fierce identification with indigeneity, and challenged the racist social hierarchy of rural California.

It was also a political movement that transformed Latino voting behavior, established political coalitions with the Kennedys, Jerry Brown, and the state legislature, that pushed through legislation and ran statewide initiative campaigns, and that would eventually launch the careers of generations of Latino politicians who would rise to the very top of California politics.

However, it was also a movement that ultimately failed in its mission to remake the brutal lives of California farmworkers, which currently has only 7,000 members when it once had more than 80,000, and which today often merely trades on the memory of its celebrated founders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez rather than doing any organizing work.

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Origins of the UFW:

In the 1950s, both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were community organizers working for a group called the Community Service Organization (an affiliate of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation) that sought to aid farmworkers living in poverty. Huerta and Chavez were trained in a novel strategy of grassroots, door-to-door organizing aimed not at getting workers to sign union cards, but to agree to host a house meeting where co-workers could gather privately to discuss their problems at work free from the surveillance of their bosses. This would prove to be very useful in organizing the fields, because unlike the traditional union model where organizers relied on the NRLB's rulings to directly access the factory floors, Central California farms were remote places where white farm owners and their white overseers would fire shotguns at brown "trespassers" (union-friendly workers, organizers, picketers).

In 1962, Chavez and Huerta quit CSO to found the National Farm Workers Association, which was really more of a worker center offering support services (chiefly, health care) to independent groups of largely Mexican farmworkers. In 1965, they received a request to provide support to workers dealing with a strike against grape growers in Delano, California.

In Delano, Chavez and Huerta met Larry Itliong of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which was a more traditional labor union of migrant Filipino farmworkers who had begun the strike over sub-minimum wages. Itliong wanted Chavez and Huerta to organize Mexican farmworkers who had been brought in as potential strikebreakers and get them to honor the picket line.

The result of their collaboration was the formation of the United Farm Workers as a union of the AFL-CIO. The UFW would very much be marked by a combination of (and sometimes conflict between) AWOC's traditional union tactics - strikes, pickets, card drives, employer-based campaigns, and collective bargaining for union contracts - and NFWA's social movement strategy of marches, boycotts, hunger strikes, media campaigns, mobilization of liberal politicians, and legislative campaigns.

1965 to 1970: the Rise of the UFW:

While the strike starts with 2,000 Filipino workers and 1,200 Mexican families targeting Delano area growers, it quickly expanded to target more growers and bring more workers to the picket lines, eventually culminating in 10,000 workers striking against the whole of the table grape growers of California across the length and breadth of California.

Throughout 1966, the UFW faced extensive violence from the growers, from shotguns used as "warning shots" to hand-to-hand violence, to driving cars into pickets, to turning pesticide-spraying machines onto picketers. Local police responded to the violence by effectively siding with the growers, and would arrest UFW picketers for the crime of calling the police.

Chavez strongly emphasized a non-violent response to the growers' tactics - to the point of engaging in a Gandhian hunger strike against his own strikers in 1968 to quell discussions about retaliatory violence - but also began to employ a series of civil rights tactics that sought to break what had effectively become a stalemate on the picket line by side-stepping the picket lines altogether and attacking the growers on new fronts.

First, he sought the assistance of outside groups and individuals who would be sympathetic to the plight of the farmworker and could help bring media attention to the strike - UAW President Walter Reuther and Senator Robert Kennedy both visited Delano to express their solidarity, with Kennedy in particular holding hearings that shined a light on the issue of violence and police violations of the civil rights of UFW picketers.

Second, Chavez hit on the tactic of using boycotts as a way of exerting economic pressure on particular growers and leveraging the solidarity of other unions and consumers - the boycotts began when Chavez enlisted Dolores Huerta to follow a shipment of grapes from Schenley Industries (the first grower to be boycotted) to the Port of Oakland. There, Huerta reached out to the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and persuaded them to honor the boycott and refuse to handle non-union grapes. Schenley's grapes started to rot on the docks, cutting them off from the market, and between the effects of union solidarity and growing consumer participation in the UFW's boycotts, the growers started to come under real economic pressure as their revenue dropped despite a record harvest.

Throughout the rest of the Delano grape strike, Dolores Huerta would be the main organizer of the national and internal boycotts, travelling across the country (and eventually all the way to the UK) to mobilize unions and faith groups to form boycott committees and boycott houses in major cities that in turn could educate and mobilize ordinary consumers through a campaign of leafleting and picketing at grocery stores.

Third, the UFW organized the first of its marches, a 300-mile trek from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento aimed at drawing national attention to the grape strike and attempting to enlist the state government to pass labor legislation that would give farmworkers the right to organize. Carefully organized by Cesar Chavez to draw on Mexican faith traditions, the march would be labelled a "pilgrimage," and would be timed to begin during Lent and culminate during Easter. In addition to American flags and the UFW banner, the march would be led by "pilgrims" carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

While this strategy was ultimately effective in its goal of influencing the broader Latino community in California to see the UFW as not just a union but a vehicle for the broader aspirations of the whole Latino community for equality and social justice, what became known in Chicano circles as La Causa, the emphasis on Mexican symbolism and Chicano identity contributed to a growing tension with the Filipino half of the UFW, who felt that they were being sidelined in a strike they had started.

Nevertheless, by the time that the UFW's pilgrimage arrived at Sacramento, news broke that they had won their first breakthrough in the strike as Schenley Industries (which had been suffering through a four-month national boycott of its products) agreed to sign the first UFW union contract, delivering a much-needed victory.

As the strike dragged on, growers were not passively standing by - in addition to doubling down on the violence by hiring strikebreakers to assault pro-UFW farmworkers, growers turned to the Teamsters Union as a way of pre-empting the UFW, either by pre-emptively signing contracts with the Teamsters or effectively backing the Teamsters in union elections.

Part of the darker legacy of the Teamsters is that, going all the back to the 1930s, they have a nasty habit of raiding other unions, and especially during their mobbed-up days would work with the bosses to sign sweetheart deals that allowed the Teamsters to siphon dues money from workers (who had not consented to be represented by the Teamsters, remember) while providing nothing in the way of wage increases or improved working conditions, usually in exchange for bribes and/or protection money from the employers. Moreover, the Teamsters had no compunction about using violence to intimidate rank-and-file workers and rival unions in order to defend their "paper locals" or win a union election. This would become even more of an issue later on, but it started up as early as 1966.

Moreover, the growers attempted to adapt to the UFW's boycott tactics by sharing labels, such that a boycotted company would sell their products under the guise of being from a different, non-boycotted company. This forced the UFW to change its boycott tactics in turn, so that instead of targeting individual growers for boycott, they now asked unions and consumers alike to boycott all table grapes from the state of California.

By 1970, however, the growing strength of the national grape boycott forced no fewer than 26 Delano grape growers to the bargaining table to sign the UFW's contracts. Practically overnight, the UFW grew from a membership of 10,000 strikers (none of whom had contracts, remember) to nearly 70,000 union members covered by collective bargaining agreements.

1970 to 1978: The UFW Confronts Internal and External Crises

Up until now, I've been telling the kind of simple narrative of gradual but inevitable social progress that U.S history textbooks like, the Hollywood story of an oppressed minority that wins a David and Goliath struggle against a violent, racist oligarchy through the kind of non-violent methods that make white allies feel comfortable and uplifted. (It's not an accident that the bulk of the 2014 film Cesar Chavez starring Michael Peña covers the Delano Grape Strike.)

It's also the period in which the UFW's strengths as an organization that came out of the community organizing/civil rights movement were most on display. In the eight years that followed, however, the union would start to experience a series of crises that would demonstrate some of the weaknesses of that same institutional legacy. As Matt Garcia describes in From the Jaws of Victory, in the wake of his historic victory in 1970, Cesar Chavez began to inflict a series of self-inflicted injuries on the UFW that crippled the functioning of the union, divided leadership and rank-and-file alike, and ultimately distracted from the union's external crises at a time when the UFW could not afford to be distracted.

That's not to say that this period was one of unbroken decline - as we'll discuss, the UFW would win many victories in this period - but the union's forward momentum was halted and it would spend much of the 1970s trying to get back to where it was at the very start of the decade.

To begin with, we should discuss the internal contradictions of the UFW: one of the major features of the UFW's new contracts was that they replaced the shape-up with the hiring hall. This gave the union an enormous amount of power in terms of hiring, firing and management of employees, but the quid-pro-quo of this system is that it puts a significant administrative burden on the union. Not only do you have to have to set up policies that fairly decide who gets work and when, but you then have to even-handedly enforce those policies on a day-to-day basis in often fraught circumstances - and all of this is skilled white-collar labor.

This ran into a major bone of contention within the movement. When the locus of the grape strike had shifted from the fields to the urban boycotts, this had made a new constituency within the union - white college-educated hippies who could do statistical research, operate boycott houses, and handle media campaigns. These hippies had done yeoman's work for the union and wanted to keep on doing that work, but they also needed to earn enough money to pay the rent and look after their growing families, and in general shift from being temporary volunteers to being professional union staffers.

This ran head-long into a buzzsaw of racial and cultural tension. Similar to the conflicts over the role of white volunteers in CORE/SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement, there were a lot of UFW leaders and members who had come out of the grassroots efforts in the field who felt that the white college kids were making a play for control over the UFW. This was especially driven by Cesar Chavez' religiously-inflected ideas of Catholic sacrifice and self-denial, embodied politically as the idea that a salary of $5 a week (roughly $30 a week in today's money) was a sign of the purity of one's "missionary work." This worked itself out in a series of internicene purges whereby vital college-educated staff were fired for various crimes of ideological disunity.

This all would have been survivable if Chavez had shown any interest in actually making the union and its hiring halls work. However, almost from the moment of victory in 1970, Chavez showed almost no interest in running the union as a union - instead, he thought that the most important thing was relocating the UFW's headquarters to a commune in La Paz, or creating the Poor People's Union as a way to organize poor whites in the San Joaquin Valley, or leaving the union altogether to become a Catholic priest, or joining up with the Synanon cult to run criticism sessions in La Paz. In the mean-time, a lot of the UFW's victories were withering on the vine as workers in the fields got fed up with hiring halls that couldn't do their basic job of making sure they got sufficient work at the right wages.

Externally, all of this was happening during the second major round of labor conflicts out in the fields. As before, the UFW faced serious conflicts with the Teamsters, first in the so-called "Salad Bowl Strike" that lasted from 1970-1971 and was at the time the largest and most violent agricultural strike in U.S history - only then to be eclipsed in 1973 with the second grape strike. Just as with the Salinas strike, the grape growers in 1973 shifted to a strategy of signing sweetheart deals with the Teamsters - and using Teamster muscle to fight off the UFW's new grape strike and boycott. UFW pickets were shot at and killed in drive-byes by Teamster trucks, who then escalated into firebombing pickets and UFW buildings alike.

After a year of violence, reduced support from the rank-and-file, and declining resources, Chavez and the UFW felt that their backs were up against a wall - and had to adjust their tactics accordingly. With the election of Jerry Brown as governor in 1974, the UFW pivoted to a strategy of pressuring the state government to enact a California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that would give agricultural workers the right to organize, and with that all the labor protections normally enjoyed by industrial workers under the Federal National Labor Relations Act - at the cost of giving up the freedom to boycott and conduct secondary strikes which they had had as outsiders to the system.

This led to the semi-miraculous Modesto March, itself a repeat of the Delano-to-Sacramento march from the 1960s. Starting as just a couple hundred marchers in San Francisco, the March swelled to as many as 15,000-strong by the time that it reached its objective at Modesto. This caused a sudden sea-change in the grape strike, bringing the growers and the Teamsters back to the table, and getting Jerry Brown and the state legislature to back passage of California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

This proved to be the high-water mark for the UFW, which swelled to a peak of 80,000 members. The problem was that the old problems within the UFW did not go away - victory in 1975 didn't stop Chavez and his Chicano constituency feuding with more distinctively Mexican groups within the movement over undocumented immigration, nor feuding with Filipino constituencies over a meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, and nor escalating these internal conflicts into a series of leadership purges.

Conclusion: Decline and Fall

At the same time, the new alliance with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board proved to be a difficult one for the UFW. While establishment of the agency proved to be a major boon for the UFW, which won most of the free elections under CALRA (all the while continuing to neglect the critical hiring hall issue), the state legislature badly underfunded ALRB, forcing the agency to temporarily shut down. The UFW responded by sponsoring Prop 14 in the 1976 elections to try to empower ALRB, and then got very badly beaten in that election cycle - and then, when Republican George Deukmejian was elected in 1983, the ALRB was largely defunded and unable to achieve its original elective goals.

In the wake of Deukmejian, the UFW went into terminal decline. Most of its best organizers had left or been purged in internal struggles, their contracts failed to succeed over the long run due to the hiring hall problem, and the union basically stopped organizing new members after 1986.

#history #u.s history #labor history #ufw #united farm workers #cesar chavez #dolores huerta #trade unions #social history #social movements #unions

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studentofetherium · 1 year

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if you want to truly be radicalized against the psychology/therapy industry and in particular how it's just another weapon for capitalism to use against workers, i recommend reading about the time that Cards Against Humanity had a black employee put in a mental institution for complaining about the company's racism. therapy is far from a neutral entity and much of the time, bigotry is endemic and an intrinsic part of the industry

#therapists are cops

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rentalboos · 8 days

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Watcher has lost almost 100 thousand subscribers

Hi babygirl, thank you for your 6 new messages, I love that you think my opinion is this important, though I genuinely don't quite get it. I'm not even a Watcher fanaccount, like, I have maybe two followers who even know the channel. What beef do you have with me lmao Since you're so interested in it though, I'm going to give it to you! FOR FREE! Since that's so important to you!

Here's the tldr: You're on anon sending hate, so you already know you're in the wrong and everyone else knows it too!

Great. Now that that's covered, here we GO! My precious opinion that you value so much! For free:

I'm sorry it offends you that I have the 5,99 to pay them and am doing it, but like. Do you do this with everyone? Do you go into people's DMs (no of course not, you only hate anonymously, wonder why that is!) to yell at them about subscribing to Twitch streams? Spotify? Youtube membership? Patreons?

What about this offends you so? That a bunch of youtubers had to make a tough choice between "we have to stop creating the art we want" and "we could try and keep creating the art we want, but we'll need to get paid for it" and chose to try and get paid for it? Is the offense, to you personally, that other people will still get to enjoy the content they like, opposed to absolutely no one getting to? It certainly can't be that you, personally, can't access their content anymore, because, quite frankly, I doubt you actually like it very much.

As for your five billion questions for why this makes you racist: You singling out Steven makes you racist. They founded this company together and they doubtlessly made this decision together and the narrative that is currently spun of "Shane (the white dude) would never, his evil non-white co-workers are forcing him to!" is .... extremely parasocial, and wildly random and coming out of nowhere.

Except for all the parts it's not, because of COURSE. Of course the evil guy and the guy who creates content "no one wants to fund" and who now everyone calls "boring" and who now has viral hate tweets saying he's "dragged Ryan and Shane down", is the asian guy who's pushed for diversity on the channel from the very start.

Like, he's well aware that his shows are the least popular. There's a reason for that, sweetie, and I promise you, it has to do with the fact that they've focused on diversity and quality rather than shittalking in front of a camera. And I'm not even a Steven girlie, I'm a Ghost Files ride or die, baby!

But this narrative that he's "homophobic and racist" because he said in a podcast once that he chooses to stay friends with people who sometimes sprout ignorant views, that's like- Get a fucking grip. I know y'all haven't reached adult life yet, it is painfully apparent, but there comes a time in life where you'll have to realize that sometimes the people around you aren't as socially aware or educated as you, but in their nature good eggs, and you can, of course, choose to drop their asses, if you don't happen to be otherwise connected to them in an adult environment, where jobs and friend groups often overlap or they're part of your family or family's circle, but the far, far better choice is to be their friend and educate them. Because that's the best way the ignorant views become less ignorant. That's literally what he's been saying in that podcast ep, by the way. I don't need to "google" that and I don't need your twitter links, I was there when that episode dropped. I listened to it as I did the dishes. I was applauding Steven for putting in the time and effort and energy to DO that with people, because I oftentimes find myself too scared to have the conversations he is having.

Watcher has donated to queer charities. They sell queer merch. They have queer employees. Their fanbase is mainly queer. He's not homophobic, y'all are insane. If any of that would go against his values, he'd a) not be in a company with Ryan and Shane, because they wouldn't be having it and b) wouldn't stand up for, employ and cater to queer people. He'd be out with the homophobes, telling us how Jesus died for our sins or whatever.

He's also not racist which- duh. Before I even knew Steven Lim, I already knew this is something he is incredibly(!) sensitive about, he literally hates racism (And I don't know if you noticed. But he's very often the target of it, you absolute bufoon) and specifically went into Watcher to be able to help marginalized voices have a platform. That was his goal for Watcher that he couldn't properly fulfil in Buzzfeed. I know that. Because I was there from the start and actually listened to them talk. And it was stated and proven many, many times.

Y'all so eager to jump on a hate train and take shit out of context, it's pathetic. And "homophobic" good God, he had a book on his bookshelf. Wow. I have Harry Potter in three different editions on my bookshelf, I've learned reading with them. They have tear stains on the pages where Dumbledore died. You're gonna say I'm a transphobe if you see them in a photo? Gonna go ahead and call me, a trans guy, a transphobe now? Knock yourself out. Because I'll care about that about as much as I care about how many angry little kids are unsubscribing from Watcher rn: Not even a little bit.

You're whining like little bitches in random fan's inboxes, are throwing insults, false accusations and racism around to stirr the pot, you're coming for Steven as if Ryan and Shane aren't literally HORRIFIED by y'all doing this in their name to someone who's their close friend. As if Watcher would even exist without him, when he saved it from going bankrupt in their first year, when Ryan and Shane couldn't be arsed to step up and figure out how to run a company.

You weren't paying them anyway. I'm subscribed to their Patreon at the highest tier, because I know good art doesn't come free and I knew they were gonna struggle on Youtube views alone and I enjoy their content and want to help them keep making it. I don't expect anyone to be able to do that - And they don't either. They also don't expect everyone to pay or be able to pay for their streaming services. They're currently working on responding to the feedback and make things more accessible. They certainly didn't handle this perfectly and they certainly didn't want to make this choice if they had another one. Neither of the three.

You won't pay for it. That's fine. That's literally all there is to it. There's no need to sling this shit around, but you're doing it anyway. Not because you care, but because you're having fun with it. Well, go ahead. The more hate you send, the more I know I'm standing up for the right people.

#watcher #watcher entertainment #discourse #sorry to my poor doctor who followers lmao #things are.... a lot

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the1975attheirverybest · 5 months

Text

Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Chapter 3- somewhere in your heart/ somewhere guaranteed

read all other chapters here

A/N: this was weird to write. Let me know what you think.

Warnings: smut? Kinda?

——-

“2:00AM” the digital clock on the wall announced. Matty rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, a small cappuccino in his hand, sighing loudly as he entered the rehearsal space.

The sound of his echoing footsteps and the smell of his coffee alerted Tobias to his arrival promoting him to rustle through some documents to locate Matty’s copy of the setlist.

“Yo,” Matty mumbled a general greeting around the room intended for all attendants. “Where’s Amelia?”, scanning over the setlist that Tobias had handed him.

Tobias sighed, knowing where this conversation was headed. He looked up at Patricia, who sat on the couch in the middle of the stage, scribbling notes into her notepad. She shrugged.

“She’s out with her boyfriend.” Tobias replied, cautiously. “And, Matthew, I know this is going to make you feel things. But can we please focus on this?”

Matty’s face deceptively hid the way that the word ‘boyfriend’ had shattered his heart. He took a long sip of his beverage. “Yeah. Okay. Focusing on this.” He said, calmly, his eyes fixed on the work presented to him.

He tried to keep his thoughts on the task at hand, but the empty chair where he’d expected Amelia to be sitting felt as if it was mocking him. Like it knew that the cup of coffee in his hand was intended for her. It made his stomach turn.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to change any of the visual backdrop along with the setlist so….i’ve prepared some options just in case…” Tobias attempted to begin the meeting, but, even as he spoke, it was clear to him that Matty’s mind was elsewhere. “Matty? Thoughts?”

“What?” Matty seemed startled. He cleared his throat aggressively. “Yes, anyway” straightening the setlist in his hand. “Right. Okay, so, we have a gap where ‘Then Because She Goes’ originally was,” Matty mumbled, more to himself than to his co-workers. He moved songs around on the board for a moment. “we’ve got ‘Me,’ as an alternative to ‘Bagsy,’ and….” His train of thought seemed to cut short. “Sorry, ermmmm.” He rubbed his eyes. “Shouldn’t George be here?” Tapping his phone screen and watching it light up and display the time.

“Texted him.” Patricia said. “He’s on the way. Said he overslept.”

Matty, once again, did not seem to be listening. This time, something on his phone had caught his attention. Even through sleep-laced vision, he could see a toggle of Twitter notifications, all of which contained his name. He slipped his phone into his pocket. Out of sight; out of mind.

He stared blankly at people’s faces, “Sorry, erm, just….just a moment. Smoke break.” He whispered, hesitantly walking away.

“Matty!” Patricia called after him. “You forgot your cigarettes!!” But he murmured something about needing to pee, instead.

***

Matty could barely hear the bathroom door close over the sound of his own heart pounding against his chest like a drumbeat. Honestly tight. His breathing shallow. He pulled out his phone, watching the notifications roll in. His stomach tightened as he scrolled through, quickly gathering that a ‘Pop Culture news source’ had just published a profile on him and revived the same old grievances that the internet has had against him for a while lately.

@Mattyfrnglomg have you considered that your jokes just aren’t funny and people hate them cuz you’re a racist twat?

Girlies, no. @mattyfrnglomg is not hot. It’s 2023 stop making being a n*zi ‘hot.’

Matty Healy is a racist, homophobic pos. Hope he ODs and fucks off.

Oh okay so I guess racism is ~high art~. Really needed an ugly white guy to teach me that. Got it thanks, Matty Healy.

This article is taking his words out of context. You don’t understand how much different he is once you actually take the time to find out what he means to say.

|___ You don’t understand how much idgaf. There is no out of context bigotry. Shut up and get a life.

He swiped out of the Twitter app and put his phone away, leaning against the sink and staring at his reflection in the mirror. He wondered if the reflection staring back at him was anything like what the internet says.

He’s been here before. Countless times, in fact. The internet turning against him every few weeks has become a constant that he can always count on. Whats the point of going through this song and dance every single time? Besides, on the other side of this bathroom door, there is a room full of people waiting for his direction. He doesn’t have time for wallowing.

He waved his hand underneath the faucet, triggering its sensors.

“Right.” He spoke to himself in the mirror, drying his freshly washed face. “Back to work.” He tossed the crumpled paper towel into the bin and watched it bounce and fall outside the rim.

“Fucks sakes.”

***

“Tobias! Swap out ‘Frail State of Mind’ for, uh, ‘Heart Out’.” Matty’s voice yelled out even before he was all the way back in the room. “Also, could we rehearse some Drive Like I Do bits?

“I must still be dreaming” George’s groggy voice announced his entrance, “surely you’re not suggesting we do Drive Like I Do songs…”

“Listen,” Matty jumped up on the balls of his feet, too impatient to wait for George to get settled, he met him at the door, handing him a copy of the setlist on which he’d scribbled some thoughts. “What if we just took out this bit, and instead did, like, Self-Titled, or DLID songs. The cyclical conclusion of the individual show would, sort of, mirror the trajectory of the tour as a whole.”

George wondered to himself if he’d simply spent too much of his life in Matty’s company or if what his friend was suggesting actually made perfect sense.

***

Matty’s leg bounced nervously under the table. He tugged at his sleeves every time that Amelia and Joshua got a bit too close to each other. He couldn’t help but look in her direction all the time. She’d burst into the room, hours late, but her smile and the fact that she’d brought food and coffee for everyone made it alright. she wore the same perfume that she’d had on the first time that Matty had ever undressed her. He caught a whiff of it when she’d zoomed towards him, setting down a pastry and a cup of coffee by his notepad and whispering “your favorites” with a playful wink. He was too overwhelmed to look her directly in the eyes. The scent is now forever intertwined with his memories of their first time together. Though it felt wrong to reminisce, a disrespect of her burgeoning relationship with Joshua, he couldn’t help but recall her trembling fingers, eagerly reaching for his belt buckle, the timid blush in her cheeks when he said that he wanted to see her touch herself first, and, of course, her breathily calling out his name when he guided her through her own self-pleasure. What he wouldn’t give to be back there now.

Being so close to her yet so far away, watching her smile at the man by her side, it all felt like a knife to the chest. The throbbing of his heart was impossible to ignore. Every time that someone had said anything clever, or funny, he would find himself turning around to check if she’d laughed too. If she’d had the same thought or reaction as him. When George had asked her how her night had been and she hinted that the reason for her late arrival had something to do with her and Joshua having a little too much fun, Matty couldn’t not watch as Joshua’s hand reached for hers, gently.

“So, what’d I miss?” Amelia asked, setting down her coffee. “You rockstars have weird business hours, by the way.”

George handed her a copy of the new setlist to get her caught up.

“Excuse me you took out ‘Bagsy’? What the fuck for??” Her outrage directed towards Matty.

He remained silent, so she returned her attention to the paper in her hand.

“‘Frail State of Mind’ too?? Are you insane?”

“We’ve already discussed it. Just….move on.” He mumbled, avoiding looking at her.

“ yeah, but I remember you saying this tour is meant to include more Notes tracks and now you’re axing half of them. Oh and I suppose you expect me to find ‘You’ totally self-explanatory, too?”

Matty scratched his forehead, irritated in silence for a moment. “Maybe if you hadn’t been late, you’d have been around for the conversation. Guess you’ll just have to schedule your dates around your work next time, won’t you?”

Amelia was stunned into silence, simply shaking her head in disbelief.

“Amelia, uhh, I wondered if we might place some lights around the door frame for the second half of the show?” Tobias asked, mostly to cut the tension. “If they end up doing 28, that is.”

“That makes no sense.” She said without a second thought. “28 pre-dates the box iconography.” Her response was to Tobias, but her eyes still watched Matty, astounded.

“Why don’t we take- uhh- take 5 minutes while I bring us copies of the apology speech.” Tobias rushed to escape the room.

“I was thinking,” Amelia mused out loud breaking the silence that had covered the room as everyone read Matty’s Better Help ad. “the sentence that starts with ‘there’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself’ how about we change it to-“

“No,” Matty stated, firmly.

“Beg your pardon?”

“I said ‘no.’” Matty kept his eyes on his paper.

“But you haven’t even heard what I think you should replace it with…”

“Don’t need to. Pretty attached to that sentence. Don’t wanna change it.”

Amelia stood out of her chair and walked, stiffly, over to Matty, slamming the paper out of his hand. “Can I see you outside for a second?”

He shrugged, following her out.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

“Amelia-“

“How dare you speak to me like that in front of everyone?”

“You’re asking questions that you shouldn’t-“

“I’m doing my job! The job that you hired me to do, by the way.”

“Doing your job would’ve been coming to work on time. Leaving your boyfriend at the door. Being a professional. Having those conversations when it was the right time to have them. Not- not now!”

Amelia shook her head, looking directly at him. He took off his glasses, wiping them off with the end of his shirt.

“Maybe the internet is right about you.” She spoke after an uncomfortable beat of silence. “Maybe you have turned into an arsehole.”

***

At one end of the hallway, Amelia laid in bed in her hotel room, watching Joshua undress and get ready to slide into the empty space next to her. She crawled into his arms as soon as he laid down.

“You alright? You seem upset.” Joshua kissed her forehead.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Matty’s face as she’d called him an asshole. A look that she’d only seen once before. At George’s house, two years ago, hours after his long term relationship had ended. He’d gotten drunk and cried himself to sleep on George’s couch. She wondered if that’s how she’d find him right now. If she walked over to the other end of the hallway, to the Royal Suite, would she find him in that same state?

“I’m okay.” She whispered into Joshua’s chest. “Kiss me please.”

***

George grew increasingly worried the more that his knocks went unanswered. He pulled out his phone, sending “anyone hear from Matty yet?” To Adam and Ross before deciding to go down to the front desk and ask for a spare key.

His heart sunk at the sight in front of him. Several empty bottles of wine around the room, Matty’s crying muffled by the pillow that he’d buried his face into, the notepad on the floor, Matty’s body shaking, his hands fisting the duvet. He was right to be concerned. He was right to come here.

“Matty,” he whispered, laying a gentle hand on his friends shoulder. “Matty, mate, c’mon. Look at me. C’mon, let’s g- please, sit up for me?”

***

“ I know this isnt what you want to hear, but…There are only two options, I’m afraid.” George said softly, his head dipping to the side. “You either tell her how you feel, or you move on.”

“But she’s got a- a- Joshua!”

George tittered, trying not to be too amused. “I know, but what does that matter? They’ve only just met. You should still tell her. Let her make the choice for herself.”

“Nothings really changed, though. She was crushed when she told me she loved me and I didn’t say it back. And-“

“Why, exactly, did you not say it back?”

“I’m not- I don’t think being together would be a good idea. I’m not good enough for her yet.”

“But, Matty, you’ve had this— thing— for her for ages.”

“Yeah, but I was a fuckin mess for the first couple of years. I mean; I was addicted to smack- and - and then she got a boyfriend. And I got a girlfriend, and th-“

“I know. I was there.”

Matty fell silent for a moment, looking down as his hands fiddled, nervously, with the end of his sleeves. “It’s just….when I’m with her….when we’re together….everything feels right. Everything feels good — ‘m not even talking about sex; not that the sex isn’t good. Cuz it is. It’s fuckin great but that’s not all there is to it— Doesn’t matter what it is that we’re doing, if we’re doing it together, then I’m happy.”

“I haven’t heard you speak about anyone this way in a long time.”

Matty smiled, a tired, defeated smile, shrugging, “right.” He looked up at George, “but….im still not the kind of person that she can depend on. I couldn’t even say ‘I love you’ back. And- she’s got someone who…clearly knows how special she is. Who’s willing to take a risk on her.”

“Matty, there is no perfect redemption arc or whatever the fuck you’re on about- you’re don’t have to wait to become a different person- she said ‘I love you’ to you. Not some….potential of a perfect version of you”

Matty wanted to remind George that she’s wrong about him. That all the reasons she loves him for are not real. Simply a product of her misplaced faith in him. A mistaken understanding that he’s a better and stronger person than he is. But he didn’t have to say all that. He had a shortcut right at his fingertips. “Look at this!” Matty held up his phone, displaying a vast number of notifications, all of which contained derogatory and disparaging attacks on him, available for the whole world to peruse through at any moment. “Do you honestly think a new relationship would be good right now?”

The glimmer of conviction in George’s eyes began to fade. “So….does this mean….you’re letting her go?”

They were silent for a moment, then, George got up and pulled Matty into a hug.

“About that stuff in your phone-“

“I’m fine.”

George knew he wasn’t fine. But he also knew he wasn’t ready for help yet.

***

The show was perfect. Amelia had to hand it to Matty. She couldn’t see the vision at first. Especially when he’d changed much of the setlist, but onstage, it made perfect sense. Watching the audience’s shock and awe at witnessing those lesser known songs be played live for the first time in years only made the night more exciting. Matty appeared to take in the positive, instant feedback as well. Thanking everyone and taking a bow before getting off-stage.

She meant to inform him of how impressed she was backstage, but he was instantly swarmed by techs, unhooking him from the equipment and checking with him about next show’s instruments. He disappeared into the dressing room shortly after, and in the chaos of the post-show action, she was distracted. Before she knew it, Matty’s driver —who’d been reassigned to her and Joshua as soon as they’re joined the tour— was driving them back to their hotel room.

***

The silence was deafening. Matty laid in bed, struggling to sleep, lonely, cold, and contemplating going downstairs for a smoke. He picked up his phone and scrolled through his Instagram messages, his finger hovering indecisively over a woman to message. The routine —something he’d done before, on many a lonely night— made him feel sick. He didn’t want that anymore. He buried his phone under his pillow and tossed to the other side.

Minutes turned to hours as Matty laid, wide awake, tossing and turning in bed. His hand slowly sliding down his body, wondering if he could relieve some stress and distract himself from the pangs of loneliness. He closed his eyes, dipping his hand into his briefs and grabbing himself. He worked himself to the memories of his best sexual encounters, trying to recall how he’d felt, what it had been like, how he’d made his partner feel. The pleasure, the intimacy of that deep connection, the rush of giving someone else overwhelming pleasure and hearing them moan and whine. None of it seemed to be working, only building his frustration. He turned to lay on his stomach, still jerking himself off. As his frustration continued, he decided that perhaps humping the mattress may help. And he really tried his best, getting closer and closer to feeling something, he dedicated all of his focus towards remaining in his body, working hard at shutting away any thoughts, his hips grinding against the bed. He groaned and whined into the bedding. Had he been quieter, or moved slower, he might have heard the soft beeping of the door lock as a spared key swiped into it, or even the footsteps approaching his bedroom. Unfortunately, he only heard “Matty?” When it was too late. Amelia was already standing in the doorway.

“Fuck! Oh my- Christ!” Matty jolted at the sound of her voice. “A-Amelia. Wha- what- what’re you- doing here?” He cover himself up with the duvet, sitting up against the bed frame.

She smiled, walking towards him. “Sorry. I clearly interrupted something.” She teased.

Matty’s lips parted. He wanted to speak, but nothing came to mind. He watched her approach him, reach out her hand, and cup his face gently. God, he needed this. A human touch. Amelia’s touch.

“Amelia I’m so-“

“I know. I know. You don’t need to say anything, Matty.”

She leaned in kissing his lips. Her hand dipped under the duvet. “Let me help with that.” Wrapping her hand around his cock. Matty stiffened to her touch, swallowing a gasp.

Her hand jerked his length over and over, she’d sat in his bed, settling into a persistent rhythm. Matty cried incoherently, fucking into her hand and desperately hoping for pleasure. Nothing helped. She noticed his hips moving more aggressively and heavily m as his frustration peaked.

“Hey, easy, easy, Matty. Not like that. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“It’s not working. I’m so sorry- I- it hurts….”

“It’s okay; it’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry.” She let go of him, moving her hand away.

Matty blushed the words left his lips before he could stop himself “please don’t leave me.”

His genuine plea caught her off guard. “Matty….” Perhaps hes been worse off than she’d imagined. “I’m not gonna leave. I’m just…can I ummm…can I hold you?”

He nodded repeatedly, a wordless and enthusiastic plea. She wrapped her arms around him, doing her best to tighten around his thick, strong muscles. Amelia kissed along the expanse of his shoulders as she shook and wept in her arms. Despite his massive build, he felt so small and fragile. She put all she had into those gentle kisses, hoping his skin would absorb her love, her care as she grazed it with her lips. They stayed that way until Matty had no tears left to cry. He fell asleep.

***

The sunlight felt harsh against Matty’s eyelids. He stirred in bed, not ready to open his eyes yet. As sleep weaned its hold on him, the events of last night came rushing back. He was filled with a mix of different emotions. Comfort, embarrassment, anxiety, and a sliver of joy. As he prepared to open his eyes and turn to the other side of the bed, he prayed to a god that he didn’t believe in that he would find her sleeping right next to him. He waited a moment for his heartbeat to come back down. Then, he turned around, slowly, and opened his eyes. She was gone.

#matty healy smut #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fluff #matty healy angst #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy x oc

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olderthannetfic · 8 months

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I feel like many social justicey analyses would be improved by the realization that some biases are caused by assuming other people are like you, and some biases are caused by assuming other people are different from you. Both kinds of biases can be harmful, but both stem from impulses that are part of normal social functioning and not inherently evil.

Assuming your experiences are universal is the other side of the coin from general empathy and thinking that other people have the same basic needs and thoughts as you do. Assuming other people are different to you and those differences must be accommodated for is the other side of the coin from the other kind of empathy, when you recognize that someone is different and put yourself in their shoes to figure out what they might want. Both can be considerate in some circumstances, and othering or offensive in others, and it's not always clear.

For example: Let's say you have an immigrant co-worker who's not fluent in your language. Is it better to A) talk to them the same way you talk to everyone else because you don't want them to feel like they don't belong here, or B) intentionally speak slower and use simpler words around them so they don't struggle with slang and fast speech patterns?

A can look indistinguishable from native speaker privilege and harmfully assuming/expecting everyone to speak on your level.

B can look indistinguishable from as assuming immigrants are bad at your language and things must be dumbed down for them.

Both have their uses, their pros and cons. As an immigrant myself who's struggled with this, there have been situations where I preferred one or the other. I have seen other immigrants complain about both. (If I had to guess, I'd say people complain about A more. Native speakers rattling on at ten miles a minute is a much more material obstacle than hazy feelings of alienation or feeling talked down to because people assume you don't speak the language well.)

But a certain social justicey crowd will be prone to making such reductive statements as how A or B are always racist or anti-immigrant or whatnot, as if it's that black and white.

Hell, a lot of the times whether something is othering or considerate will depend entirely on how likely it is that your guess is right. Assuming a random passerby doesn't speak your language has a very different contextual weight depending on if it's in the middle of the street in a crowded city, in the middle of the street in the non-native diaspora part of the city, in a classroom of grad students in an international program, or in the middle of an airport. But for one thing, that doesn't change the fact that you're still guessing and going by assumptions, and there's always the chance you're wrong. For another, that means that's as much an issue of correct situational analysis as it is of bigotry and bias, and yet, again, people will act like things are straightforward.

I also see this lot in discussions of disability and health. Some people want to be treated the same as everyone else instead of being reminded of the way in which they're different, others want tangible accommodations that will improve their quality of life, which means not being treated as everyone else. But so often people will see vent posts from one group or the other and conclude that THIS is the one and true way to handle X disabled group, and if they see someone doing anything else, that means that person must be an ableist bigot.

I think some people don't realize that when we say "Treat others the way you'd like to be treated"... many people wouldn't be able to agree on what the second part of that looks like.

(Yes, people in the notes, there are situations where you can just ask what a specific person would prefer - at least if the asking itself is not too othering and awkward. But that doesn't change anything about the dilemma of these different approaches.)

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gartenofbanny · 9 months

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Hello! I am currently trying to make a document including all evidence of Viv's problematic behaviour, and since you're quite popular in the critical community, I wanted to ask your opinion on the structure of it. If I missed anything feel free to correct me!

Vivziepop is a horrible person

I-early signs

-Nazi sausage party ocs (inspred by doctor Mengele, following a nazi blog

-drawing Kesha and glorifying her illness

-Zoophobia (contains the Addison drawings, Mirage being depicted as goofy when she's a pedo, Sahara and Latika designs

-supporting blaire white and Shoe0nhead (her too since Shoe has recently been revealed as a neo nazi)

-transphobia (discord messages)

-drawing Mimzi as a caricature/stereotype of Jewish people

II-Spindlehorse & twitter

-Raphielle shipping valangel, saying their a proshipper and still working on SH

-Following multiple proshippers, including someone who used audios of REAL kids for his digital CP and someone who actively ships Rick/Morty

-allowing and encouraging the harrasment of people who critique her shows to the point they are forced to come out or receive rape threats

-Blaming A24 for the lack of competent advertisement on Hazbin Hotel and replacing the voice cast

-encouraging harassing Erin Frost and Kendraw for coming out with their experience with her

-Studio reviews revealing the nepotism and abuse in the SH studio

III- The shows

-finn/ cole was made cis when he was originally trans

-sally mae only regarded by the fandom as a trap or futa, sexualised in every piece of her merch with her dick being emphasized to the point the fandom fetishizes her

-alastor being made creole or mixed as an afterthought, when Viv had already used real life voodoo symbols, very clearly inspiring alastor from Wendigos without any research, made him white as paper and depicted him as the 100th " asexual and aromantic person is an evil murderer!".

His asexuality and possible aromanticism is always ignored by the fandom in favor of shipping, and inclusive Vivziepop even said to do as they pleased with his sexuality for shipping.

-forced positivity, pushing the idea that even murderers, abusers and horrible people can change hazbin hotel

Depicting abuse (Crimson hitting Moxxie, the whole Valangel tag existing) and sexual assault (again woth Moxxie and angel) as funny jokes or sexy

-Noticing a pattern, Viv tends to promote M/M relationships a lot but depicts them as overtly sexual, predatory and toxic, and seems to have a problem with having "twink" characters abused sexually in a yaoi-ish way (Addison, Moxxie and Angel, Vox. Stolas/blitz too.)

-the only two people of color that are confirmed are Alastor, Velvette and Valentino. Velvette's color is very ashy and she is often infantilised (this might have more to do with her being a woman in Vivs eyes) she presents no POC features at all, neither does Valentino who is a stereotypical black man who is a pimp, abusive (sexually too) and has a short temper.

-using "it's hell " as an excuse to make horrible characters to glorify and depict as the true victim while doing nothing to become better. (Ex. Stolas is a rapist , Blitzo Sexually harrasses his co-workers and is very toxic, Alastor is a serial killer.) Depiction is not glorification, but Viv actively makes it seem like all of it is okay to do and has a show who has a very negative message that affects the viewers and fanbase into excusing disgusting shit.

-disrespecting religion by not accurately researching the demons she talks about

-Sexist writing in helluva and hazbin that favores males(Loona,Millie,Stella, Verosika)

-ableist language by Blitzo, refusal to acknowledge this and even joking about not being able to say a slur

-collaborates with Brandon Rogers,whose work is clearly sexist,racist,homophobic and ableist

-making fun of eating disorders (Moxxie)

-involving kesha in her show while she is trying to get justice for being abused and trying to recover, making the character she voices based on all the things she hated about herself

-included famous voice actors, pays thousands for them but actively underpaid and overworked her staff

-No trigger on an episode that contained Blitzo vomiting

-Barbie wire grooming a teenager is considered a joke (and the tweet doesn't count, we should be able to tell if the teen was actually older by his design or any line of dialogue, if those who don't have twitter won't know it means it's a problem)

-various incest jokes hinting at proshipping (Moxxie/Millie, and a rumor +dialogue cues hint at Andrealphus and Stella being in a relashionship)

-merch of almost all female characters being somewhat sexual

-depicting the Woman/Man as the only healthy relationship (Moxxie/Millie) while the queer couples are toxic (Chaz/Moxxie Blitzo/Stolas)

Holy shit that's a long read, I suggest you make that into a blog post or something. The only portion I can assume that you got correct is the third section. Most of the first two sections are spot on to me, but I am not sure if they're both completely correct because I'm not really aware of what Vivziepop did in the past, just what she has been doing since like last year. Sorry to disappoint, but it is pretty great from what I'm reading.

Modify it to what you think is best so that people will read from it and test read it yourself in case you got something wrong. I suggest you use Grammarly for grammar or spelling issues because even though English is my first language I still struggle with those

#helluva boss #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop #helluva critical #helluva boss critique #vivienne medrano #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin critical #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism

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