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imagine-a-life-like-this · 11 months

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Always Him : Prologue

Word Count : 1k

Warnings : swearing, food mention, mentions of sex, mentions of being tied up, mention of arson, kinda angsty, kinda crackheadassery

A/N : Just a brief introduction to some of the characters! Hope you enjoy the mess that is about to come.

She woke up wrapped in his arms for the third time that week. He always seemed to hold her closer when he’s sleeping, their bodies contorting into one mess of limbs, but she loved it. Loved how peaceful he looked, loved seeing how perfect they fit together. Like two puzzle pieces specifically made for one another.

She would allow herself to imagine what life would be like if they were more than friends. If he loved her outside of his bedroom. And then she would slowly remove herself from his hold and sneak back into her room, laying in her own bed, dreaming of the day Hongjoong would let her in.

“Wake the fuck up, we’re going to be late again.” Mae said as she jumped on top of Y/n. “Whatever, or whoever, it is you’re doing at night, you need to stop or you’ll fail out of uni.” Y/n groaned as she wrapped her arms around Mae, rolling both of them over, and pretended to keep sleeping. “This works too. Goodnight.”

“Fuck sake Mae, you were supposed to be waking her up, not falling asleep with her.” Kayla said as she walked into the room, yanking the covers off both of them, causing both of them to groan and beg for 5 more minutes. “Yunho is here with coffee and breakfast. Get dressed and be downstairs in 10 minutes. Both of you.”

“Yes mom.” Mae groaned, sliding out of bed, and walking over to Y/n’s closet. She looked through her clothes, picking out an outfit for her, and throwing it towards the bed Y/n was still laying in. “Put that on. It’ll drive whoever you’re fucking crazy when they see you.”

“Who said I was fucking anyone?” Y/n pouted back, quickly slipping on the outfit that Mae chose for her.

“The hickeys on your tits. And the one on your neck. Might want to put some concealer on babes. I’ll meet you downstairs.” With a kiss to her cheek, Mae left Y/n’s room, who was now standing in front of her mirror, curing Hongjoong in her mind while trying to cover up all 5 hickeys he left.

“Thanks Yunho.” Y/n said as she ran down the stairs and into his arms. “You always know how to make mornings better.” He gave her an extra squeeze before letting her go.

“I should go check on the others. When I left the apartment, Jongho was making his way inside, so I’m sure Wooyoung is there by now. Gotta make sure they didn’t let Mingi near the kitchen.”

“Is he back to setting things on fire again?” Kayla asked from the comfort of Seonghwa’s lap. He had his arms wrapped tightly around her so she wouldn’t go anywhere, leaving her to have to feed him his breakfast. It was a routine at this point, a sight everyone was so used to seeing that they’d be more confused if they sat separately.

“You’re talking as if he ever stopped. Introducing him to Mae was the worst idea.”

“That’s my baby!” Y/n laughed, high-fiving Mae, and then San who wanted to be included.

“I did nothing but show him his true potential.” Mae replied matter-of-factly. “Besides, it’s only arson if you get caught.” Kayla reached into her purse for the tiny spray bottle she started carrying around once she became a mom to the group of idiots, and sprayed Mae in the face.

“Bad Mae. We don’t do crime.”

“Be gay. Do crime.” Y/n chimed in, earning herself a spray from the spray bottle.

The 6 of them walked to school together as they do everyday. Seonghwa and Kayla were holding hands, swinging their arms back and forth, as she continued her conversation with Mae and Y/n, who were walking with linked arms. San was on the other side, his arm draped across Mae, every once in a while giving his own opinion on whatever the conversation was. Hongjoong walked slightly ahead of everyone else, every once in a while glancing back to see Y/n already looking at him.

He had hoped she wouldn’t cover the marks he left. Hoped she would show them off proudly, but he should have known she would cover them. They were just friends, nothing more than friends that live under one roof. Friends that keep ending up in each other’s beds. Like an undeniable force bringing them together over and over again.

He couldn’t stop looking at her. Glancing back every few seconds to look at her again, hoping no one else would notice. Every time he saw her, it was like the songs wrong themselves. Lyrics floated around in his mind. But friends write songs about friends all the time.

Maybe his songs verge on love songs with the way he describes the feelings he has. How beautiful he finds her, how drawn to her he is. It’s like she understands him in way no one else does, and he could spend the rest of his life with just her, and he would be happy. But it’s all platonic, mixed with some physical attraction. How could he not want to fuck her when she looks at him with a pout on her face but dirty words dripping from her lips?

She made it impossible to be around her without thinking of all the dirty things she’s begged him to do to her. He looks at her and can’t help but to picture her all tied up and helpless with his head in between her legs. That happens between friends sometimes, right?

He wasn’t in love with her. He couldn’t be. She was just a friend he enjoyed fucking into submission most nights. Friends with benefits if you will.

But maybe if he could take just one second to see the hearts in her eyes when she looks at him, he would see things differently. If he could get out of his head long enough to see that she allows him to use her because in those moments she can pretend he loves her, maybe he could see that friends don’t look at friends that way.

back to masterlist

@mxnsxngie @maeleelee @lethallyprotected @choisoorin @berryblog @anyamaris @nebulousbookshelf @junebug032

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antifainternational · 1 year

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Our 2022 report on hate-motivated, fascist, and far-right extremist violence is now available for download here. This report accompanies our 2022 incident chronology and incident map, where we tracked media reports of hate-motivated violence globally. Highlights:

-Last year, our research team documented 477 violent incidents motivated by hate or committed by fascists and far-right extremists that killed 366 people and injured 399 others. This included 112 shootings, 19 arson attacks, 55 stabbings, 218 beatings, 6 chemical weapons attacks, 2 bombings, 18 vehicle attacks, 5 kidnappings, 8 sexual assaults, 2 acid attacks, 8 incidents of torture, and 24 thwarted terror attacks.

-This was actually 40% fewer attacks than we recorded in 2021. However, the violence we recorded in 2022 was deadlier than any year since we began this research project in 2017.

-2022 also saw more hate-related shootings than any of the previous five years. -The good news: we documented fewer attacks on Asians, Muslims, Black people, gay/lesbian/bisexual people, and migrants/refugees than in 2021. -The bad news: Anti-fascists, Jewish people, and trans people were more likely to be targeted in 2022 than the year before. One in five attacks in 2022 targeted anti-fascists; one in four attacks targeted a trans person. Attacks on Jewish people tripled proportionately when compared to 2021. In 2022, 45% of the people murdered in hate-motivated attacks were trans. 2022 was the worst year porportionately for violence against anti-fascists since our research began in 2017. -New York City was the location for the highest number of hate-motivated attacks in 2022 and was #3 on the list of cities experiencing the most hate-motivated violence, relative to population. 11% of all attacks; 30% of attacks targeting Asians; and nearly half of all anti-semitic attacks that we documented last year happened in New York City with the majority of the city's anti-Asian violence occurring in Manhattan and the majority of the city's anti-semitic attacks occurring in Brooklyn. Download our report to find out more. View our 2022 incident chronology here. View our 2022 incident map here. Links to our past research and a donation page to help us continue this research project here.

#antifa #violence #hate crimes #bias motivated crimes #antifascist #why we fight #antifascism #we keep us safe

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armoredsuperheavy · 9 months

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: An Insufferably Queer Film Review

I rewatched MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987) for the first time since it came out last night and WOW I have some thots about this thing. We enjoyed roasting the living shit out of it but there's a few gold nuggets in there despite the brutal budget cuts that impacted the plot and what not.

Contains plenty of spoilers.

God bless Wardrobe

OK so … the film doesn't bother to set up any real motivations for the characters, and He-Man (an incredible looking Dolph Lundgren rrrowrrrr) has almost no dialogue which is such a fucking waste. But this complete lack of narrative framework means we can apply OUR OWN explanations to events.

From the very beginning Skeletor has this obsession with He-Man, which will simmer and then culminate in a final showdown. But before we get to that hot mess, we have to wade through the middle of the film.

He gets as much screen time as He-Man.

Meet the utterly repulsive dwarf scientist Gwildor played by Billy Barty, a rinse-and-repeat of his performance as an utterly repulsive magic troll in Legend (1986). This dwarf is the film's Jar Jar. His face is like a deep dish pizza after an acid attack. His real mouth is visible behind the immobile thick prosthetics and it makes for some truly disturbing close-up dialogue shots. Please, pan away from Pizza the Hutt and give us another shot of Lundgren's pecs please I am begging you, DP

We find ourselves in Gwildor's hobbit hole, and he's a magical inventor. So he has this cylindrical object, it's not clear whether it's a weapon or a teleporter but I'm calling it the Butt-Reamer 9000. Inexplicably, there are two of these things and Skeletor has the other one, and wants to collect both of them. So Skeletor has an excuse to go hunting He-Man as he's hunting his missing McGuffin, er I mean sex toy.

Features rotating ticklers, a big improvement over the Butt Reamer 8000.

The thing about the Butt-Reamer 9000 is its magical power to make even this promising setup devolve into a grind as it whisks the Eternians into the magical, enchanting world of a 1987 New Jersey parking lot. WHO WROTE THIS?

The entire middle of the movie is pretty much hot garbage and involves police detectives, arson, vandalism, high school prom, and other dumb bullshit. Aside from the distractingly naked He-Man, the good guys are an utter bore and include some Eternians, some regular Earth humans and their quotidian concerns which really brings down the fun of the movie. (No, baby Courtney Cox, I don't care about your imminent breakup with your mediocre boyfriend!)

The film owes a second mortgage to Star Wars and steals a lot of ideas from it, from bad guys in shiny black stormtrooper helmets, to heroes shooting blue lasers, baddies shooting red.

Let's turn from this depressing state of affairs and focus back on our cherished villain blorbos.

(L-R: Karg, Evil-Lyn our goddess, and Blade.)

Evil-Lyn is beautiful, evil, a cold bitch queen. Gurl you can do so much better than sticking with this loser Skeletor.

Dump! Him! He's gay anyway!

Skeletor is a shit lazy boss of Greyskull and makes Evil-Lyn run the goddamn place in general. He literally shoots the messenger at one point. Great for morale, there, Skel buddy.

Look closer. Fierce!

There's a number of budget rate henchmen on the job, including Karg, who used a whole can of aqua net this morning and is running around in a white fur capelet with a massive bouffant. He is just doing his best okay, really it's hard to look fabulous around these other bitches.

Blade definitely deserved more screen time

Also, Blade, who had a slutty costume of silvery scale maille or something, and was a bit like a sci-fi bondage Riff Raff / space Judas Priest. Best side character costume.

So, there we have it, the queer coded villain roster of the film.

This homemade collage is for sure taped inside Skeletor's locker at school

Note the gigantic brown eye.

Finally, thank Satan, we return to Castle Greyskull, though it's more like beige-and-brown-skull. But aside from the questionable use of faux marble finishes, this is a quality villain lair with hard points installed directly in the floor of the living room, convenient death pits, and an excellent throne setup that I'm pretty sure they recycled for The Fifth Element.

He-Man is captured alive and brought before Skeletor. Blade does the honors with a 15 foot glowing red bullwhip to He-Man's naked and oiled back, much to the delight of dyed-in-the-wool sadist Evil-Lyn.

Movie is getting good now. Was the side quest to Jersey really necessary?

Skeletor, though, watches this action from the throne and has a lot of interesting responses. We had to conclude that Skeletor is a big old bottom but won't admit it. As a dom he is utterly ineffective. He's trying to make He-man kneel and all this shit but He-Man is not submissive at all. Skeletor is … lol. He really just wants to smell He-Man's dick.

The depths (heh) of his bottom nature will become apparent shortly. But first, a costume change.

Skeletor's glow up --- i'm every woman.

Honey we know you're just trying to impress He-man.

Werk tho.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hole

The gigantic sky-sphincter directly behind the throne has slid open wide… "Begin! The Goatse Ritual! Join me, He-Man, as I become LORD OF THE GAPE" But He-Man's phallic symbol shines bright in defiance. In the end, Skeletor is vanquished symbolically by his own nature and instead of his hole swallowing He-Man, a gaping hole swallows Skeletor instead.

They don't really explain what happened to Evil-Lyn after He-Man's inevitable victory in final man to man combat but she was too smart to get caught sleeping in there and must have survived. What a hot evil competent BABE. After the events of the film end, I vote that Evil-Lyn seduces Teela (the good guy solder lady) and has a hot toxic lesbian affair with her.

Evil-Lyn serves cunt in hell 4 evar

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Want some more?

Nice fanart

Another breakdown on Buzzfeed if you enjoyed mine this is even more gay headcanon

The movie is free on Tubi if you want to subject yourself to it.

ArmoredSuperHeavy, 19 Aug 2023

#motu #he man #skeletor #evil lyn #movies #movie review #80s movies #camp #queer coded villains

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soberscientistlife · 11 months

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the UpStairs Lounge Fire in New Orleans. On June 24th, 1973, members of the Metropolitan Community Church, which met at the lounge, gathered after the service for drinks. The building erupted in flames around 8PM, trapping dozens of people inside. Thirty-two people lost their lives. Fifteen were injured. Until the tragic events of Pulse, the UpStairs Lounge arson was the largest attack on LGBTQ+ people in the United States. It was never declared a hate crime, and rumors circulated that a member of the community committed the arson. The city was slow to respond to the fire, then had difficulty accessing the building due to traffic. Ultimately, city officials mocked the incident. Many of the bodies were not claimed by family. To this day, two remain unidentified and are buried in a potters field outside the city. This tragedy became a turning point in the Gay Liberation movement. It marked the third fire attack on an MCC community, one being an attack on their headquarters in Los Angeles and another in Nashville, TN. All three incidents happened in 1973, but the New Orleans fire was the only one with fatalities. The events of this fire have been referenced in numerous books and films, including my first novel, The Miracle. Today, I had the honor of walking a Second Line with hundreds of others from St. Mark Methodist to the site of the UpStairs Lounge. It was a truly beautiful experience full of somberness and jubilation, as only New Orleans can provide. May we always remember how far we have come and how far yet we have to go 🌈❤️

~Father Nathan Monk

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socialistexan · 11 months

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Hear me out. Conservatives want to hold pride month at gunpoint, right? Make the consequences for having anything queer in the store so high that they just can't afford to do it. What if we do the opposite? Go out of our way to support anyone who does risk their necks by making pride merch. There's been a trend to say rainbow capitalism is surface level and manipulative and not to be supported, but this year I think it's important to make a statement. Conservatives are saying 'if you dare to sell the merchandise of my enemy I will commit vandalism and pull 14% of your stocks'. They're justifying it by focusing on how we're MARKETING to the CHILDREN! Let's undermine that statement with our actions. If a company keeps pride merch in their store, buy it; certainly favor it over other brands of the same item. Buy stocks, if you can. Make retail workers' lives easy. If you see someone leave a mess, straighten it out. If they ask why - say you're worried about the conservatives messing with stores ever since the violence and arson, and you want to support those who stand behind pride month as it was intended. Because... that's true, you know? Their goal is to scare us into hiding or lashing out at them so they can paint it on a billboard and say 'see! they're just hateful! we're the good guys here, we want to protect your children!' I think the most important thing right now is to stay visible, and specifically to stay visible in a way that people can't avoid the contrast of what conservatives are doing (violence and arson over... kid shirts that say happy pride? 'light binding effect' - so, what, a sports bra? 'tuck-friendly, extra coverage' - so they're mad we're covering up kids' junk better?) versus queer people being... Excessively kind and generous in every way. Which, you know, is hard. Conservatives are making it hard. But they're making it hard out of petty spite because they think they're losing. And to a decent degree - they are. As long as we can call attention to what they're doing, I think we can keep it that way. I dunno. I'm all over the place, and I'm a baby to this community anyway. Trans rights and happy pride.

TBH, I'm pretty much of the same mindset this year.

Like, people want to kind of ignore the cultural power that having allies, powerful allies and the way of showing that we aren't going to go backwards has, but it is absolutely necessary.

I hate to say it but there are absolutely people who are what I'd call soft allies. They don't really keep up with the community and what's going on with the people that hate us, or really don't think of us day to day but are generally supportive because that's the way the culture is moving. They'll defend us and be on our side so long as we hold ground. What could be flippantly called "virtue signalers." We need those people to remain on our side if we're going to fend off this current wave of attacks.

I understand if people in the community scoff at this and why they wouldn't want the support of people like this, but let me tell you, I was an out queer teen (preteen!) in an era where the culture was very much against us and really just beginning to come out of that. It is awful. I was around when not only gay marriage was illegal (and absolutely unthinkable), but being LGBTQ was fully illegal in over a dozen states including my own. I don't want to go back to that, I don't want to see those laws return. The cultural tide turning in our favor was extremely important in that.

I kind of look at the allyship of corporations like Target and Starbucks in the same way I look at allyship of the Democratic Party. It makes thinks so much easier for us, because it signals to our soft allies that their continued support is okay.

Are these cultural powers and instiutions bad? Yes. Should we have to justify our existence through appealing to them? No the fuck we shouldn't. Should we do it anyway before the cultural tides totally turn against us and leds in a very bad direction we can't come back from? FUCKING YES!

It sucks, but we need to stem the tide N O W, because what lies after this should the fascists win this round is not pretty.

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d0not-disturb · 9 months

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MY HERMIT-HAMILTON AU!! (Empires included 😉)

-Hamilton: Mumbo Jumbo (my fav💋)

-Eliza: Grian

-Angelica: Martyn 🤑

-Peggy: Jimmy

-Aaron Burr: Docm

-John Laurens: Scar

-Lafayette: Iskall

-Hercules Mulligan: Impulse

-King George: King Ren, Obvi 😒

-Samuel Seabury: Bdubs

-Philip Hamilton: Grumbot 😉 (he got shot in the face)

-Tomas Jefferson: Geminitay

-James Madison: Pearlescentmoon

-George Washington: Xisuma

-Charles Lee: Zedaph (Take FAT L blud)

-Maria Reynolds: Also Jimmy. he needed more screen time tbh

-James Reynolds: Tango

-George Eacker: Etho (Grumbot killer 💋)

-John Addams: Cleo

__________________________________________________

NOTES I SUPPOSE!!,

-The ONLY reason I chose Mumbo for Hamilton is because Mumbo can’t spell and he ‘writes like he’s running out of time’ Also see how pathetic Hamilton was in the play? Wet cat vibes. Mumbo = wet cat. Mumbo = Hamilton.

-Helpless. Grian. Season 6. Eliza. Yeah it’s Grumbo themed. Because they have kid who got shot the stars align people!,! 👏👏👏 BTW Grian setting things ON FIRE MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. my fav arson boy. Tired of Mumbos silly shit. Same bro 😞 ALSO MUMBO SENT GRIAN LETTERS THRU MESSAGING SYSTEM GRIAN CALL HIMSELF CLINGY GIRLFRIEND. HMMMM WONDER WHAT THAT REMINDS ME OF. ELIZA. BEING HELPLESS. OMG. YAY GAYS.

-*sigh* Martyn DID marry Mumbo but not here. Lose for the Martyn Mumbo shippers. Like the one left. MARTYN GIVES OFF STRONG ANGELICA VIBES. Peggy is Jimmy. Jimmy is Peggy. YOU KNOW WHY. STARS ALIGN PEOPLE 👏👏👏👏👏👏 Also Jimmy grew a pair and stole his siblings man. Bravo Jimmy!

-Docm being Aaron Burr just fits okay? When Mumbo first came to Hermitcraft he found support in Doc. And Doc done SHOT the guy same here bruv. I would too if my wet cat main character supported Gem. SPEAKING OF WHICH-

-Gem, just Tomas Jefferson. MAYBE I WANT A PEARL AND GEM TEAM UP MAYBE NOT. WHO CARES ABOUT GENDER ITS A SCAM MADE UP BY BATHROOM COMPANIES TO SELL MORE BATHROOMS. Hmmmmmm Xisuma as Washington because I am a true believer of Mumbo thinks of him as a Dad core. Dadsuma. RIGHT HAND MAN 🏃‍♀️

-Uhhh Grumbot is literally Philip. Literally 🔥 They both love their Dads and do they’re last names Proud, they both got shot, THEY BOTH ARE PIANO KIDS! Hmmmm Biblically accurate my friend 🌚

-King George as King Ren just fits. HERE IS WHY!!! 1. they both fruity ass kings. 2. They have Fruity little guy who love and support them. 3. KING REN ARCH AND REBELLION. but then you’ll b like. Why Grian Eliza not Hamilton? Uhhhh because I SAID so. Also because who would be Schuyler sisters? (Don’t answer)

-Hmmmmm Scar as John Lauren’s make me happy…..Redscape hints people👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

-Urm I will NOT throw away my shot ☝️🤓 And make character designs and fake screenshots of these so expect THAT. send in asks for questions blah blah blah. And if I get something wrong, just tell me pls 😭

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found-family-tournament · 1 year

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Found Family Tournament Round 1 Part 8 Group 39

Propaganda and further pictures under the cut

Shazamily: Billy Batson, Freddy Freeman, Mary Bromfield, Darla Dudley, Pedro Peña, Eugene Choi, Rosa & Victor Vasquez

Clawthorne-Nocedas: Luz Noceda, Hunter Noceda, Camila Noceda, Eda Clawthorne, Lilith Clawthorne, Raine Whispers, Gus, Amity, WIllow, Vee, King Clawthorne, Hooty, Owlbert & Stringbean

Mods note: Jesus christ. I got at least 6 different versions for the owl house fam. I've just choosen the one that includes the most people now. If you disagree, feel free to tell me.

Submissions are still open!

Shazamily:

They're a big foster family who all love each other SO so much, and Billy's arc from "you are not my family" to embracing them as his siblings and parents is THE best arc ever in a superhero movie

Clawthorne-Nocedas:

Camila has one daughter. Daughter wanders into Demon Realm and is immediately replaced by a shapeshifter who wants a safe haven. Shapeshifter is revealed and Camila loves her and lets her be herself. Daughter returns from the Demon Realm with four traumatized teenagers. This single mother tries to understand their culture, and keeps them under her roof and never asks anything of them except to pitch in around the house. Embraces them and loves them, despite the strain on her wallet. And helps her OG daughter embrace her deepest desire and become a witch.

So freaking adorable

I fucking love Luz and hunters sibling dynamic, they’re all so silly and precious and they make me want to cry, Eda and Camila are both such mother figures for Luz and I just BCHSJSHSIDHDUOSNDHD

unapologetically weird

one of them is literally a living house and he's possibly the funniest being alive

gay af, neurodivergent af, and as culturally diverse as it gets

character styles are adorable

actual exploration and resolution for daddy issues, alcoholism, etc

illegal activity encouraged, they're one step from being communist revolutionaries and literally would/do commit arson for each other

fantastic character development in learning how to take care of each other

perfect balance of "cool parent" vs "unfit parent" slippery slope (there may be gambling

exploration of found family within bio family and how those relationships evolve

ALEX HIRSCH DOES ALEX HIRSCH THINGS

massive extended family not fully listed here

THEY HAVE MERCH (both in universe and irl)

they don't try to do too much or be too perfect. They're all traumatized people with wild experiences but they're what each other needed at the time -did I mention they're super cute

THEYRE MISFITS. WEIRDOS. WHO HAVE TO STICK TOGETHER.

They are super cute and have all gone through enough trauma and deserve to just live their lives in peace.

saved the world with the found familyness

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kuwdora · 5 months

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Fanworks Con 2023 Vid Premieres Squee Recs Here’s my squee-and-recs for the @fanworkscon 2023 vidshow Premieres! There’s a few vids that I haven’t found online yet but I still included them because they’re great and I’ll edit the post when I find links. I haven’t managed to watch any of the premieres from the It Follows vidshow yet but for now!! Enjoy the bounty of awesome new vids for many fandoms. Over 20 recs under the cut!

Some humorous and lighthearted vids...

Don’t Be a Lawyer by starlady This vid!!! She-Hulk!! To a song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Really nailing the humor of the show, the breaking the 4th wall and it’s just even funnier with this song. I was wheezing the whole fucking time.

Sexy and I Know It by nestra Oh my god it’s Jamie Tartt from Ted Lasso. I laughed, I wheezed. Jamie Tartt is indeed sexy and he knows it. This is so much fucking FUN.

Four words on the top of your tongue by donteatthebee Okay apparently this is for this new show called Vice Principals and I have no idea what is gong on in this vid (nobody in chat did either). But what we do know is that Walton Goggins is fucking incredible and you get two middle aged men who love each other and even hump each other on screen and give each other pining and adoring looks? Well of course people’s fannish ears are gonna perk up. Amazing use of Taylor Swift, I still have no idea what’s going on by the end of the vid except that they will do anything for each other. What the fuck was that hot tub scene? Amazing. Also note the amazingly bland and dorky ties they are wearing. I have seen enough to know that I will watch this show. Odds Are by rhea Omg this is for 9-1-1 and truly the pinnacle of ODDS ARE. This show is too ridiculous for words. “Struck by lightening” repeats how many times in this song? And every single clip is different lightning!! Everybody goes through so much. Lmao. Beautiful people and family and gay folks and feelings. Shades of Purple by BlueshiftOfDeath Vice Principals vid about Gamby and Russell loving each other. There’s also a tiger and some shooting and I still don’t know what is going on but I’m also seeing arson and… Wow there is so much happening. There’s clips in this vid that I didn’t see in the other Vice Principals vid and I am even more intrigued. I’ve also never heard this song before but the vibe of the music is *chefs kiss* Consider me recruited. Duel of the Fates by jonesandashes, pollyrepeat Star Wars. I was NOT PREPARED FOR THIS VID. Oh my god I am howling. I was not prepared for the song and… everything else. Literally just giggling and covering my face the whole vid saying “whatttttt??” over and over. This might be the greatest Obi-Wan vid I’ve ever seen. How the glass breaks on the beat at 2:06!!!! Sheer perfection.

At Your Pace by Rhea 9-1-1 show ‘cos that’s where Rhea’s heart lies and it is SO FULL OF LOVE FOR THIS SHOW. This vid is all about Buck and Eddie being an amazingly slashy couple. Also reminded me how I never finished the first season but damn they are so slashy and adorable together. This vid gave me the warm fuzzies and nostalgic slashy feelings.

Amazing vids with Amazing Vibes...

Heated by ultraviolet_catastrophe BEYONCE VID!!! I haven’t seen a Beyonce fanvid in awhile. All I could think while watching this is just how much fun it must have been going through all the music videos because damn the production quality and style of Beyonce’s music videos is gorgeous and yummy to watch, whewww. Outstanding editing here.

Underworld by VielMouse Alright so this is Stargate the movie with some video game music from also a 90s game. Someone in chat said “is this what taking acid feels like?” and honestly I think that is the right question to be asking while watching this. Wild and sonorous and, great overlays that really did put me back in 1994. Also Jaye Davidson is so fucking beautiful, my god. Outstanding vid. Love seeing Stargate again. Amazing vibes. The Wandering Song by periru3 This is a vid for the comic/animation Over the Garden Wall. Which I have no idea what that’s about but this animation is gorgeous and the editing is ALL VIBES for THIS WHOLE SONG. Hush, Little Baby by bStro The Sandman vid! INSPIRED song choice for the cover of Enter Sandman. Amazing look at Death, Desire and Johanna Constantine, Lucienne throughout the show with some incredible money shots of Dream of the Endless, of course. But waaahhhh this is supremely epic and satisfying to watch.

Some vids about living in an age of resistance...

A Hazy Shade of Winter by Jayne L (JayneL) The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance vid! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this vid is epic. This definitely has become the vid that I will forever associate with this song (and I have even vidded this song before, hah). This vid has incredible pacing and uses the stunning visuals of the show so well. I didn’t want to blink the whole time because I didn’t want to miss a single frame. Like, damn. Epic.

The hammer and the nail by stardust_rain Star Wars. Cassian Andor’s political education. Fuuuuuuuck. Mind the warnings on this vid, naturally, but y’all?? Do you all know how amazing it is to see Thea Gillmore music used in a vid?? Lyrics + tone of the song is so perfect for Andor. The pacing has me nodding and grooving along and it’s definitely a must-watch if you are into the show.

Multi-source vids that will make your jaw drop...

This is It by sandalwoodbox This is a pan-fandom vid (over 50 sources!!) about characters playing Go. It’s brilliant and it took me about halfway through the vid to actually notice each clip features a character playing black or white and throughout the vid the whole game is progressing, holy fuck, it’s so much fun and the lyrics are bangin’ for it too.

Bicycle Race by seekingferret Putting a Queen song to ALL THE BICYCLES EVER! There’s so many movies and tv shows in this vid and the progression of bicycle riding and then the moving frames with everyone riding their bicycle just escalates the fun. I keep losing it when I get to the bell chiming section and everyone starts falling off the bicycles, wahaha.

Relationship dynamics like whoa... A and B Song by mithborien A new Steve/Bucky vid FROM MITIHBORIEN!! I have been loving mithborien’s vids for an eternity now and oh my god just roll up into the con with a new Steve/Bucky vid and smack me back into my slashy feelings all over again. Tom McRae used to get around in fanvids ages ago but man I was so happy to hear him again for this vid in particular. The lyrical associations are fabulous. I feel wrung out after watching this vid.

Destroying Angels by Tafadhali Yellowjackets. Shauna/Jackie, fucked up teenage sapphics and cannibalism. This show is so fucked up and this vid doubly so, for all the right bad reasons whew. I was watching this and literally muttering “oh fuck” every 15 seconds. The vocalist is eerie, the underlying instrumentation during the verses is HAUNTING and foreboding. This vid does not pull any punches. The lyrics about ink and blood on her shoes and icy skin?? It’s a very intense vid..

Grandpa Never Gives Up His Money by ghost_lingering OMG NEW GHOST LINGERING VID!! This is for the 2018 film Trust about Paul Getty’s family. Whew the content warnings. Eat the rich. What an incredible use of The Beatles, too. The tonal shift at 1:15 is killer and holy crap this vid just keeps going and going and GOING and everything gets worse and…what a fucking rollercoaster, holy fuck. I’ve never seen this film but goddamn. A great vid for a fucked up family and movie. I’m kind of obsessed with the edits on the guitar in the last minute of this vid, too. Incredible stuff.

Don’t Take the Money by Anoel - not uploaded yet I don’t think? Will edit this post when I find the video online. Tag me if you see it! This is a Succession siblings vid and honestly I was not sure what to expect because I thought it was going to be the original song but it’s actually an MTV Unplugged cover featuring The Bleachers and Lorde. And oh my god it just really epitomizes how much the right cover can do wonders for a vid idea. Jesus Christ. These siblings got so fucked up and fucked over by Logan and that just hurts even more when you see all the human moments the siblings have for each other in this vid.

Heartwrenchingly beautiful and aching vids...

Man is Not Made by His Fractures by videobaths - also not uploaded yet? If someone sees this online somewhere please tag me?? Moon Knight vid!! “A man is not made by his fractures; he is able to mine them as a chance to emerge whole.” Aw, I really fucking love Oscar Isaac’s portrayal of Marc. This is a song I’ve never seen vidded before! Lil’ Was X’s Tales of Dominica. “Sometimes you’re angry / sometimes you’re hurting / sometimes you’re all alone.” If that isn’t the epitome of Marc’s life I don’t know what it is. Spectacular editing through and through. Live to Tell by AurumCalendula Star Trek TOS, Animated Original Series and Star Trek Discovery. A whole vid focusing on the Guardian of Forever! And the portal and the characters who go through the portals. Aurum’s cropping of the disco footage was so interesting and I think it did a lot to help it fit in with the other footage because everything is filmed so differently. But Aurum always makes my heart sing or ache and this is no exception. The difficulties of saying goodbye, aaaaahHHHhhh, just masterful storytelling here.

I Remember Damage by ohvienna An Ilsa Faust fanvid using a voice over from Station Eleven. Voiceover vids as the main audio track can be hit or miss for me but damn this really hit me. Just nailing the hurt and pain and perseverance in the face of unbeatable odds and coming back to your person time and time again. Fucking realness here.

The World You Thought You Lived In by BeatriceEagle This is: Adventure Time, Stargate SG-1, Farscape, The Magicians and Star Trek: The Next Generation. This vid explores what it is like for characters who are trapped living an entire life during a day. Heartwrenchingly beautiful. And painful! Cause then they lean into living out their life. But then the day ends and the characters have to go back to their other life. Aaaah, “say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in.” 😭😭😭😭 Very good pain.

Thousand Eyes by nu_breed_vids (nu_breed) This is a Korean TV show 손 : The Guest (TV). Åppears to be horror and trauma and really walloping the main character with the angst and whump. Mind the vidder notes/tags. In fact the vidder tagged this “Yoon Hwapyung is a whump magnet” which seems to track. The song choice is so ominous and slow-burn-y and goddamn, I’m not sure if this is some kind of demonic possession or whatever but I gotta check it out. The instrumental section with the drums and escalating strings is so TERRIFYINGGG with the blood and pain and losing himself. My god.

Blow your mind intense vids...

Psycho by lolachrome 长月烬明 | Till the End of the Moon (TV). A new Lola vid!! This is so fucking lush and gorgeous and the fucking attitude of this devil god character is fucking dreamy and intoxicating and terrifying at the same time.

Reincarnation by ExtraPenguin Star Wars sequel trilogy. Rey vid!! This is a constructed reality vid about Rey being the reincarnation of Anakin. The editing on this is so fucking slick and intense and incredible. So warning for lots of quick cuts and later flickering lightening shots. Oh my god. The intercutting between Rey and the original trilogy footage. I am foaming at the mouth. This vid is a (ahem) force to be reckoned with. It’s so cool and interesting to see Star Wars canon get recontexualized for this concept. And it’s executed so well!! Do watch if you are a Star Wars fan.

Never forget the antiheroes and misfits... Antihero by theletterelle Loki vid! It’s exhausting to always be rooting for the antihero. Oh, this is definitely reawakening my Loki feelings. The lyrics (especially the chorus!!) are so good for Loki. Do love, will watch again.

Superstar by sandalwoodbox A Nimona vid!! To Tegan and Sara! Oh holy fuck, I’ve come to expect and hope for awesome vids for this movie but this one is dark and still grooving with the beat. I did not expect this song to work so well with fame and propaganda. Oh my god, Gloreth's betrayal and Nimona and all the fallout with that. My. Goddddd. "I saw my first angel and it was you" omg NIMONA. Goddamn, these lyrics really punch you in the face.

#fanvid #fanvids #fanvideo #fan video #fanworkscon #fanworkscon 2023 #vid rec #video edit #vidding #vids #kuwdora recs #will i ever be able to format things for tumblr on by the third attempt? probably not #anyway i have many feelings and here are some of them.#an actual post that i finished and remembered to share. i need a sticker to commemorate the day

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rjalker · 1 year

Text

Stop misgendering maia arson crimew. Its pronouns are, and I quote, "it(/she)". Neither of these options are they/them.

There's no excuse for misgendering when the post you're making literally includes a screenshot of its bio.

[ID: A screenshot from twitter showing maia arson crimew's profile, which has a background of grafiti reading, "be gay, do crime" spray painted on a wall, and an icon of a curcled up brown and grey spotted kitten that smiles at the camera.

The bio reads:

maia arson crimew @nyancrimew

indicted hacktivist/security researcher, artist, mentally ill enby polyam trans lesbian anarchist kitten (θΔ), 23 years old, pfp: @vai5000

it(/she), maia.crimew.gay, Born August 7, 1999, Joined February 2022

A red box has been drawn around "it(/she)", with a red line pointed to a zoomed in version of the same text, now enlarged for emphasis.

End ID.]

also be warned if you go to its website above (maia.crimew.gay), it does have a bright background and some flashing icons.

#maia arson crimew #no fly list #nofly list #misgendering #exorsexism #transmisia #it its antagonism #ititsantagonism #transmisogyny #described images

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 9 months

Text

By: Allan Stratton

Published: Jul 23, 2023

Toronto is one of the most tolerant, multicultural cities in the world. And yet, according to many of its progressive journalists, academics, and politicians, it’s actually a den of systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Unless you’re a straight white man, daily life is supposedly an exhausting and dangerous struggle. If you live in the United States, the UK, Australia, or elsewhere in Canada, I’m guessing you’ve been told similar things about your own society.

I’m a gay man for whom these reports bear no relationship to the real world. Certainly, hate-crime statistics show a sharp increase in physical and verbal abuse against specific demographics, including my own. And there are even rare incidents of murder and arson. But to suggest that minorities live under constant threat from a bigoted majority is apocalyptic nonsense. This is especially true of Canada, an especially open, diverse, and welcoming country. Western nations, more generally, are incontrovertibly the most tolerant on the planet.

My heretical view (among fellow progressives, at least) may be due to my “positionality” (this being a faddishly woke jargon term that most English speakers would call “perspective”). The Holocaust and the internment of Japanese North Americans ended a mere six years before I was born. The pass system that turned Canadian Indigenous reservations into open-air prison camps was still in force. The United States was segregated by Jim Crow and redlining. Cross burnings and lynchings went unpunished. Marital rape was legal. Spousal abuse and unequal pay were commonplace. Gay sex and cross-dressing were criminalized, with outed individuals losing their jobs and children. “Fag bashing” was treated as public entertainment.

In the relatively few decades since, western governments have implemented universal civil and human rights protections for racial and sexual minorities. The speed and depth of this transformation has been so remarkable that it seems inconceivable that we ever lived as we once did. Has any other culture critiqued its failings and set about reforming itself so quickly?

This is not to suggest that everything is sunshine and lollipops. Human nature has not been repealed. Police departments without effective civilian oversight, for instance, continue to invite corruption and abuse. Nonetheless, we now have the tools to press for accountability, such as human rights tribunals and whistleblower protections.

It’s also important to acknowledge that while the relative increase in reported hate crimes may seem shocking, that rise is based on a remarkably low baseline. For instance, 2021 saw a 65 per cent increase in incidents (over 50 per cent of these comprising verbal slurs) targeting Canada’s LGB and T communities. But that still represents just 423 cases in a country of 40-million people. That’s hardly a “tsunami of hate.” The number is infinitesimal compared to the 114,132 domestic assaults and 34,242 sexual assaults recorded against women.

One often hears that a reversion to the backward ways of the past is just around the corner. And it is true that abortion rights now hang in the balance in many conservative U.S. states. But the idea that any Western country (especially Canada) is on the cusp of a wholesale rejection of liberal principles is absurd. Women will never again need their husband’s signature to open a bank account. Racial segregation is unthinkable (except, ironically, in certain progressive institutions). Marriage equality for same-sex couples is constitutionally protected in North America, and enjoys a historic 70 per cent level of support in the United States.

So, unlike those on the left who came of age in the 90s and the decades that followed, I don’t see an intolerant society destroying civil rights and minority safety. Rather, what I am now witnessing is a period of progressive overreach, led by ideologues with no (apparent) historical memory or understanding of how our liberal social contract evolved. They have turned language inside out so as to render words such as “woman,” “safety,” and “genocide” essentially meaningless; pursued policies that lock one-time progressive allies in a zero-sum culture-war conflict; recast free speech as hate speech; confused wishes (and, in some cases, fantasies) with rights; and punished dissenters from their Borg-think with social exclusion, “re-education,” and firing.

This radical attempt to unilaterally impose a new social order based on race and gender essentialism has ignited a widespread public backlash, which has been weaponized by the far right, destroyed public goodwill, and done more damage to the progressive cause than anything its reactionary enemies have done in recent years.

The civil-rights movements of the last century won victories by liberal means based on liberal values. This included an insistence on free speech and civil liberties; and an appeal to the universal values of dignity and equality, which in turn underpin the case for protecting individual human rights and freedoms.

In part, this was because we liberals understood math. We needed white, straight, male legislators to support our causes, a project that could only be engaged through free and open debate. Empathy-based co-operation enabled us to create bridges among our diverse groups: The Gay Liberation Front raised money for the Black Panthers. In turn, its leader, Huey Newton, supported the gay liberation and women’s liberation movements. Meanwhile, Jewish groups applied their historical understanding of discrimination to help lead the fights for women’s rights (Betty Friedan), gay rights (Larry Kramer), and black voting rights, with some even giving their lives as Freedom Riders

By contrast, today’s illiberal left explicitly rejects the principles of free speech and universality. It ignores the lessons of past civil-rights successes, often denying that such successes even took place. After all, how can one insist on the dismantling (or “decolonization”) of a system that has shown itself capable of self-correction and continuous improvement? The only framework that validates the progressive narrative of ongoing oppression and white supremacy is one that ahistorically presents mainstream liberal values as a failure.

The switch in social-justice circles from liberal to authoritarian ends and means has at least three major causes. The first is structural: As (originally) liberal rights groups such as the ACLU achieved their objectives, they were required to rewrite their mission statements and pretend away their past successes — this being the only way to justify their ongoing existence.

Far from seeking to “burn it all down,” most of us within the original LGB and T movements simply wanted equality within existing social structures. We used liberal “respectability politics” to make our case, and (for the most part) folded our tents when we achieved our goal. The unwitting effect of this was to leave our old organizations to the radicals, who had long condemned us as sellouts to the patriarchy. Their goal is nothing less than the remaking — or “queering” — of society, a vaguely defined project infused with a deep suspicion of, or even hostility to, capitalism and the nuclear family. The liberal LGB and T wish to live and let live is now the authoritarian “live as we live.”

The second factor is generational change. Just as children separate from their parents in their passage to adulthood, so does each generation define itself in contradistinction to its immediate predecessor. Without personal memory of past struggles, present conditions are taken for granted. And so the battle against current injustices (real or otherwise) is seen as humanity’s defining and timeless struggle.

My generation mocked our parents’ conformity and stoic, suck-it-up ethos, forgetting that these traits had been necessary social adaptations during the Great Depression and World War II. Similarly, activists of this generation attack our commitment to free speech and integration within society, forgetting that these strategies were necessary for us to be heard during the Cold War, when outsiders were suspected as potential fifth columnists.

But perhaps the most significant factor has been the academic trend toward postmodernism, which instructs adherents that neither objective reality nor human nature exist in any certain, provable way. Reason, logic, and objective facts are rejected — or at least put in scare quotes — as are appeals to history and science. These are all held to be mere artifacts of language, which is itself presented as a reflection of existing power structures. And since these structures are presumed to systematically oppress the powerless, they must be deconstructed, dismantled, and decolonized, root and branch.

This kind of thinking isn’t just claptrap that flies in the face of day-to-day human experience. It also encourages a kind of intellectual nihilism that precludes amelioration of the injustices and power imbalances that supposedly concern many postmodern thinkers: After all, what could possibly replace our current power-based intellectual constructs except new power-based intellectual constructs?

Nonetheless, postmodern habits of mind (often flying under the banner of “critical” studies of one kind or another) have infected academic humanities and social science departments all over the west, much like the fungal parasite on The Last of Us. Its professorial hosts now work to dismantle their own institutions, attacking the “colonial” concepts of science and empiricism in favour of undefined and unfalsifiable “ways of knowing.” Meanwhile, their students have incubated its spores and spread them into the wider society, including corporate human-rights offices.

Progressives (rightly) have denounced Donald Trump and his supporters for their paranoid belief that the 2020 U.S. election was “stolen.” But these right-wing conspiracy theorists are not so different from campus leftists when it comes to their à la carte approach to accepting or rejecting reality according to passing ideological convenience

In particular, the idea that pronouns serve as magic spells that can turn a man into a (literal) women is no less ridiculous than anything Trump has ever said. The same goes for the mantra that while girls who cut themselves need therapy, girls seeking a double mastectomy require “affirmation.” Likewise: Racial segregation is a bigoted practice … except when it represents the very acme of progressive enlightenment. “Defund the police” doesn’t mean abolish the police, except when it means exactly that.

And then there’s Schrödinger’s Antifa, which presents these street thugs either as a very real force that rose up as a morally laudable reaction to fascism … or as something that exists only in Tucker Carlson’s fever dreams, depending on context.

But postmodernism and critical theory have done more than just damage our societies’ intellectual cohesion. Their denial of universal human nature eliminates empathy as a tool to bridge differences among groups, which are instead presented as warring sects prosecuting unbridgeable race (or gender) feuds. Since power is presented as the singular currency of the realm, the ability to shut the other side up is valued more than the ability to persuade it.

Gay men such as Andrew Sullivan and Andrew Doyle have been among the most prominent dissenters against wokeism — in part because we instinctively recognize the destructive nature of this power-fixated mindset. Our experience suggests that empathy and reason are far more important than threats and cultural power plays.

Dave Chappelle has said that the LGBT movement won public support more quickly than its black counterpart because of racism. But I believe the truth is different: Unlike racial and ethnic minorities, we exist in every demographic, every family, every ethnic category. When we gay men came out en masse during the 1980s AIDS pandemic, all communities realized that we were among its children, parents, and siblings. People have a harder time discriminating against their own than against outsiders.

Traditionally, the left has appealed to a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. The resulting project of alliance-building has entailed negotiation among different groups, all of which may have different priorities and perspectives. But that alliance-building project becomes impossible when one sect or another demands that disagreement be treated as a form of thoughtcrime. Deplatforming doesn’t just hurt the target; it also hurts the movement, since the summary excommunication of dissidents means that adherents never need to acknowledge or address counterarguments, internal logical inconsistencies, or the off-putting nature of their message.

Indeed, ideologues such as Nikole Hannah-Jones claim that politics has a colour: Blacks who aren’t “politically black” are traitors who collaborate with “whiteness.” As seen through this lens, Asian-Americans who fight anti-Asian discrimination in the context of affirmative action are supposedly puppets of white supremacists, and the LGB Alliance, by standing up for same-sex attraction, is smeared as a transphobic hate group. (For asserting that biology is real, Stonewall UK even tried to destroy the career of one of the LGB Alliance’s founders, Allison Bailey, a lifelong social justice advocate who happens to be a black, working-class lesbian, and the child of immigrant parents. Thankfully, Stonewall did not prevail.)

Opponents of cancel culture often focus on its negative effects on conservatives. But it’s often woke organizations that end up imploding under its strains, typically due to internal battles over victimhood status and linguistic control. In recent years, many of these groups have been driven off the rails by single-issue gender activists who are willing to support misogyny and homophobia in the name of trans rights; or BLM activists willing to permit racism directed at “model minorities.” Even antisemites have been allowed to infiltrate left-wing political parties, the arts establishment, and anti-racist education initiatives. No wonder everyone involved with this movement is always complaining about how emotionally “exhausted” they are: They’re surrounded by toxic fellow travellers who gaslight them as right-stooges if they dare raise a complaint.

Another notable feature of militant social-justice movements is the sheer joylessness of their leaders and supporters, a condition that often seems to blur into a collectively embraced state of clinical depression and paranoia. This posture flows from their presupposition that they suffer endlessly due to the malignant primordial character of “whiteness” and heteronormativity (or, yet worse, cisheteronormativity). The language of individual agency and hope, which animates liberalism, is replaced with a soul-dead idiom by which the activist presents as a self-pitying victim of oppression, constantly at risk of suicidal ideation, erasure, and genocide.

Even privileged “allies” are encouraged to dwell on their whiteness, straightness, cisness, “settler” status, and other marks of intersectional Cain. By erasing the possibility of redemption, the movement alienates liberal allies who are seeking to build bridges with others en route to living successful and fulfilling lives in a way that escapes the politics of identity. The social-justice puritan, being primarily concerned with advancing his status within a cultish inward-seeking subculture that’s constantly inventing new grievances, on the other hand, finds such a goal unthinkable.

The use of words such as “harm” and “violence” to describe the microaggressions known to the rest of us as “daily life” is a particularly unattractive feature of social-justice culture. In the 1980s, gays and lesbians responded to daily discrimination with the chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” Today, the children and grandchildren of that generation, now enjoying full civil rights and perches within elites sectors of government, culture, and high society, instead tell us, “We’re here, we’re queer, and … we’re terrified to step outside.” As a gay man, it’s humiliating to hear this kind of maudlin rhetoric uttered in my name.

The broad public, long sympathetic and accommodating, has had it. People have no time for hysterical activists who whine, bully, and hector them about things they didn’t do and over which they have no control. This is particularly true when those same activists demand the elimination of women’s sex-based rights, the medical sterilization of children and teens, and the explicit exclusion of job applicants by race. The more that ordinary men and women came to learn about gay marriage, the more they accepted it. By contrast, the more that ordinary men and women come to learn about trans-activist demands and critical race theory, the more they’ve become repulsed.

Support for Black Lives Matter collapsed when the woke trivialized the arson and looting that accompanied the George Floyd protests. The public was completely onside with the left’s demand for police reform, but horrified by the extremist push to dismantle public security, and enraged that the left justified breaking pandemic restrictions for protests while insisting that grieving families be kept from their dying relatives in hospitals.

Likewise, Lia Thomas tanked support on gender radicalism. The public had long welcomed trans civil rights, sympathized with those suffering dysphoria, and accepted that even non-dysphoric trans-identified individuals should be able to live and present as they wished. But the sight of a strapping, butch male taking women’s prizes and opportunities was a breaststroke too far.

Facing resistance, the woke doubled down, insisting on automatic gender affirmation for everyone, including rapists and children. The result gifted social conservatives an issue of concern to majorities across the political spectrum. Now, progressives in the U.S. face a raft of bills that, among other things, resurrect false charges of Alphabet paedophilia. No wonder LGB groups are jettisoning the T: In the space of just a few years, trans activists have undone the good work that gay activists did over multiple generations.

The progressive movement must stand up to its extremists. We must restore the liberal social compact that won our civil and human rights. That means we should root our claims in areas of common ground, demanding fair treatment, but not the right to dictate what others think.

The most intense theatres of culture-war combat involve the education of children, an area in which liberal attitudes must be allowed to hold sway. Popular free speech principles should be applied to school libraries and curricula — which means opposing campaigns to root out books demonized by both the left and the right alike. In classrooms, an open exploration of history can provide a context for kids to discuss how injustices were overcome in the past and how they might be handled in the present. Students can be taught to brainstorm how to use their advantages to help the less fortunate, and how others in their situation have dealt with adversity. But they should never be taught that personal relationships and moral hierarchies are determined by the colour of one’s skin.

Likewise, boys and girls should be allowed to play and dress free of gender stereotypes, with a no-bullying policy strictly enforced. They should learn who they are by themselves, and be taught that they are more than the sum of their parts. They should not be labelled by ideological adults consumed by a mania for gender theory. In school, I skipped with the girls, had a lisp, and liked to play with china elves. That didn’t make me a girl, just as dressing butch and dreading the effects of a puberty doesn’t turn a lesbian into a boy. (I shudder to think what might have happened were I a child today.)

We should also return to the left’s traditional focus on class. Diversty, equity, and inclusion initiatives enrich the small group of well-educated profiteers who proselytize the DEI faith, but they’re actually worse than useless when it comes to workplaces, exacerbating intolerance among the hapless workers forced to submit to tedious seminars and questionnaires. Resources from the DEI industry’s rapidly metastasizing bureaucracies should be redirected to programs that materially help the poor: Unlike affirmative action programs, investments in deprived neighbourhoods disproportionately assist minorities without the creation of double-standards and racial left-behinds that serve to energize white nationalists. They also support social mobility and economic inclusion.

“I just want to say—you know—can we, can we all get along?” is how Rodney King put it in 1991. While many of us might read the underlying sentiment as self-evident, the militant social-justice left now treats it as a forbidden lie, since the entire movement is based on the conceit that peaceful and harmonious coexistence is impossible within a pluralistic liberal society that doesn’t forcibly “queer” itself, endlessly hector citizens about their bigotry, and segregate workers and students by skin colour.

I believe we can all get along. As a progressive, a gay man, a Canadian, and a liberal, I want no part of any movement — whatever it calls itself — that insists we can’t.

[ Mirror: https://archive.is/es3Q4 ]

To the extent that liberal principles are actually being rejected, it's coming from both the authoritarian reactionary right, and the authoritarian postmodern left.

#Allan Stratton #liberal ethics #liberal values #liberalism #illiberalism #antiliberalism #anti liberal #critical social justice #social justice #wokeism #cult of woke #wokeness as religion #woke #toxic wokeness #religion is a mental illness

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