#Riot grrrls take no shit

[fauna-and-floraa]

Getting into skz was a bad idea because I've always had a penchant for collecting things, ESPECIALLY different variations of the same thing... and boy, does this album have different variations of the same thing.

[andrrrgynous]

theriotgrrrlproject making a brainless pro israel post wasn't something i saw coming but for some reason i'm not even surprised

[chippedshake]

Cherry and Marcia as second-wave feminists though

Reading the Feminine Mystique as soon as it starts gaining traction

Cherry going so far as to read The Second Sex in the original French version

She didn't understand much but Marcia had read the English translation so she got the basics from her

I saw a headcanon once that Cherry listens to heavy metal, and yes, only it's grrrl riot

They joined the distribution of pamphlets about birth control and such on college campuses once they went

I feel like Cherry would have a stereotypically feminine calling to something like teaching little kids and feel really guilty about it, like she should like something that defies the status quo

Marcia would study biochemistry and work in research

Although, looking at things realistically, I think their feminism would be very heavily centered on white, upper-class women like themselves and they wouldn't really consider WOC or lower class women

UNTIL

One day

At a meeting in a feminist bookstore or whatever (my research was light Wikipedia reading before bed, don't take me too seriously)

They're in a semi neutral location

It's mostly white but across classes

They start talking about birth control and there's this black greaser girl who starts telling them all about Native American and African American and Latina women being sterilised without their knowledge by the same advances they were advocating for

She says they need to do something about that too

But when she said that, she interrupted Cherry and Cherry's proud and hot-headed and started fighting back against her and things escalated and they both stalked off

Marcia got kinda mad on Cherry's behalf because loyalty but also she could see the other girl's point, especially because things like that were so seldom talked about in white (=most well-known) feminist spaces

So they talk it over a while, Marcia and Cherry, and they realise that the other girl had a point and they really had no idea because their version of feminism has been so white-centred

And they're kinda wishing they could apologise and maybe work on something together

And there she is, closing her locker

So they go over to her and apologise and all that good person shit and the girl seems a bit skeptical at first but warms up to them eventually and then suddenly they realise they haven't introduced themselves and the other girl says,

"Nice to meet you, I'm Evie."

[slutdge]

This is gonna be a rambly rant-ish post that probably wont even make sense but I've been doing some more reading than usual of interviews with punks that lived through the 90s and like. It REALLY makes alt tiktok people look ridiculous when they insist that grunge and riot grrrl are what punk transformed into during that decade like. there were still lots of legit punk bands going all through the 90s (and still are today) and the general consensus from these people that I'm reading about is that the majority of punks at this time thought the riot grrrl and grunge movements were total poser shit for rich kids lmao. specifically a lot of women of color who lived through that time critiqued how much racism they experienced from white women in the scene that was supposedly a safe space for all women. the reason yall think grunge and riot grrrl was the "new punk" of the 90's is because actual punk was very much still going strong as well as the rise of sludge which was an adjacent genre but it was less documented because it was too taboo to be played on mtv or featured in rolling stone. Yall wanna be punks but wont seek out anything outside of mainstream media outlets. "Riot grrrl and grunge were the punk of the 90s" is challenged by people who were actually there so no tiktok zoomer i dont think that is correct. Just some thoughts, dont take this too seriously, its just been on my mind for a minute.

[sailorspica]

reijean hitchannie college band AU headcanons that may not lead to fic form but i feel strongly about because i did undergrad at a huge university with a prestigious music school where everyone was depressed + i've been giffing kids on the slope (2012) w reiner's seiyuu + the given akihiko/haruki reijean agenda:

all the warriors grew up playing classical music w/ varying degrees of parental pressure, for example mr leonhart is a violinist and annie's first and forever teacher so maybe she maims him here too (he's like jk simmons in whiplash); karina is into classical music as a status symbol

by contrast hitch and jean know how to have fun. hitch learned everything from youtube, jean's mom let him quit piano lessons as a kid so he came back to it on his own when he realized it was cool/thought it could get him girls (it doesn't) (inspo: nick cave)

annie (lead/rhythm guitar), hitch (vocals/rhythm guitar/octave pedal "bass"), jean (vocals/keys/bass), reiner (drums). reiner would do bass if he had sukuna arms

reijean meet in intro to audio engineering which counts as a science class for some reason, form the band after roping annie into their final recording project; annie's an undeclared part-time student who mostly works

first they try marco as rhythm guitarist but he is too jazzy and cannot wrap his mind around rock tone, annie is furious (low stakes version of trost; sounds derogatory but marco just looks like a jazz guy)

hitch is a business major who thinks music is a hobby, kinda yasu from nana energy. annie recruits her after overhearing her teaching/berating marlowe before he absolutely bombs an open mic night

hitch is an acoustic girlie (dark ukulele past) but annie and jean take her shopping and she picks a danelectro stock '59

annie plays a jaguar bc of her short fingers, she's some combo of lindsey jordan / luna li but also j mascis

reiner's favorite drummer is karen carpenter, deadass

hitch is the least disciplined which equal turns teaches them to relax but incites rage, annie and jean lock her in a room w reiner bc this bitch cannot count

everyone sings but especially hitch and jean, the vibe is michelle zauner and craig hendrix; i think they hype up the other two who are very self conscious

main songwriters are annie and jean, jean finds jazzy chords that hitch hates

annie was concertmaster of her arts magnet high school orchestra until mikasa showed up and the worst part is violin is mikasa's like, tertiary instrument; now they are ex-gf roommates

opera singer mikasa ruins lives, she is kissing kissing mezzo historia in boy drag (inverse girl armin) in uhhh idk la clemenza di tito

ymir is probably a drummer in a nu riot grrrl band, root of her frenemyship with reiner, also i think she's trying to steal annie and/or hitch

reiner is a cello performance major who became interested in rock percussion after hooking up w eren; eren's taste is incredibly lame, he likes like, dave grohl

eren and mikasa both did piano lessons as kids and she forces him to be her accompanist most of the time, but he and jean tag in and out ever since eren gave himself gamer's carpal tunnel before mikasa's first jury freshman year

jean is Not a music major but he makes money as music majors' accompanist; he could be studio art? or something "reasonable" (a la the MPs, business school hitch), like cybersecurity

annie and marcel = violin, pieck and bertie = viola, reiner and porco = cello

bertolt is living studio ghibli whisper of the heart in italy

for the first half of undergrad reiner lived with marcel in place of porco bc that little shit felt smothered by the galliards bUyINg a whole apartment for their boys, but when marcel graduated pocco moved in and uhhhhh evicted reiner, who thought he had saved enough to make it on his own by living rent free but uhhhhh karina stole it

uhhh pieck looks like my first gay crush (a violist opera singer) so let's say she's studying abroad

point is, reiner is isolated through no one's direct fault, really, besides pock; annie is his closest friend in town and she's such a tsundere about it. he lived on her and mikasa's couch for a week but will never return because it was too awkward even for his broke ass

[bikinikillarchives]

kathleen in the short-lived lgbt/riot grrrl magazine, Princess Magazine. cover photo found through riotgrrrlbible. 

EDIT: full interview can be read here, or in transcript underneath!

“Like there's some people you shouldn't fuck, because the fantasy of fucking them is way better than actually fucking them will ever be. It takes a mature person to figure that out. (...) Sometimes people use stars, though, to mediate relationships. The star is on stage and the audience is on the floor because you need to be on stage so people can see you. But while people are looking up at you, they're not looking right next to them at the person they might really need to be talking to. In some instances, the stage/fan set-up prevents relationships with each other. People focus on the star and live vicariously.”

The following is a conversation between Kathleen Hanna and Kathy Strider discussing the concepts of stardom and fandom--attempting to define them and figure out what they mean socially.

KATHY STIDER: So let's start with a really basic working definition of what you think a star is.. what role does a star play in society, why do stars exist?

KATHLEEN HANNA: I think part of the idea of being a star involves how it separates people: stars are superhuman, or "real" people and everyone else is supposed to be obsessed with their lives. Everyone else is supposed to be following what the "real" people do, which means that everyone else is less than real.

KS: Yes, there is a weird hierarchy that seems to be created. It seems that, if you've achieved some kind of stardom. People think that you've gained some kind of legitimacy or success that they don't have. This can apply even if people don't like or don't care about your work. I'm thinking, for example, of some older guy who's sitting in his house on a Sunday, opens up a magazine and sees a picture of Kim Gordon. He doesn't necessarily know anything about her or her work, but there’s still going to think in some way that she has something that he doesn't, or has some kind of agency that he doesn't. You made a good point in an earlier conversation about stars being in a way, both superhuman and 'dead or cartoonish, not allowed to be real'.

KH: Right, I mean any form of duality is dehumanizing for those involved. In this case, there is this idea that there are "common" people in one place and "royalty" in another. Although I wouldn't say that the "royalty" is oppressed, I'd say that both sides are dehumanized, because they both work in opposition and reaction to each other. And it's not like either side is necessarily recognizing full human agency, although the "royalty" can do that to a greater degree, because they're afforded privilege and position. Both of them become inhuman, like the royalty becomes a cartoon character.

KS: But I think it's important to make this distinction though, that a person who becomes a star is not in reality becoming a cartoon character. They really are people who live in houses and eat food, etc. But to others they [are] becoming less human, even to the point where people throw shit at them on stage, when they wouldn't throw shit at people on the street. I guess what I'm asking you is, why do you think that people feel a need to have people like that in society? What kinds of responses and experiences have you had with people who you think were seeing you that way? What was going on with them?

KH: I guess I can talk about a common interaction that I have with people when they ask me for an autograph. I used to try to disrupt thing by being like, 'well I'm not more important than you.' I talked to them about the idea of autographs, stardom , and fame. I mean, obviously that's not always practical. But then I realized it was kind of condescending, because it was assuming that they were stupid, that they might not know that already. Then I started thinking, 'Wait why are they approaching me?' Approaching someone and asking them for their autograph assumes certain things, like that that person is valuable.

KS: Like you want their name written on something.

KH: Right. I think it was Salvador Dali who said something about how it was the last form of human cannibalism or something. But anyway, I started thinking, 'Well maybe they just want to talk to me' and sometimes they only wanted a friend's phone number or something. But some put me into this idea and if I venture out of it, they get really angry. I mean, I think a lot of people in every day life totally experience that in terms of crushes. You have a crush on somebody, you build them up in your head. Then you actually hang out with them and they're not what you thought they were or what you wanted them to be. People are really creative and imaginative. We reinvent stuff. The thing is we have to be careful not to turn others into objects. Because you need to get some clay or pens or something like that, instead of objectifying people, why don't you just use actual things, and objectify them, rather than using Courtney Love to play out your fantasies.

KS: But I think there's a certain dynamic, there's a reason why people need others to do this. There's something really intense about what happens between a star and a fan , where the fan really sees something about the star (as opposed to a lump of clay) as something they can really work themselves out through.

KH: Yeah, well I've done that , I did that with Evan Dando.

KS: I think everyone does that. I know I've done it. I think it's completely normal. the thing is I just wonder why, what is it about our society that has set up this particular structure. I just wonder how it works into the idea of capitalism, the idea of people selling their performance and others buying it . But then, you know, when it comes time to talk to them you're unable to speak. Like there's this time when I met PJ Harvey and I was unable to speak to her. I felt like such a nerd.

KH: I had that with Karen Finley, too.

KS: She seems really approachable though.

KH: Yeah but it's my idea, I was really afraid that she would disrupt my idea of her and I didn't want her to. Her work changed my life, and I realized I just wanted to keep her in that context. Like there's some people you shouldn't fuck because the fantasy of fucking them is way better than actually fucking them will ever be. It takes a mature person to figure that out. Ha ha ha . Sometimes people use stars, though, to mediate relationships. The star is on stage and the audience is on the floor (because you need to be on stage so people can see you). But while people are looking up at you, they're not looking right next to them at the person they might really need to be talking to. In some instances, the stage/fan set-up prevents relationships with each other. people focus on the star and live vicariously. I think that has to do with capitalism, which dehumanizes everyone into robots. The more people get abused by their families and by sexism, racism, classism and homophobia, and able-body-ism and stuff, the more numb people have to become. And the less we can actually deal with any real confrontation, because confrontation may remind us of all this other stuff, and that's real scary. So we avoid being healthy enough or safe enough to feel a lot of stuff.

KS: Yeah, I think you're very right. So it's like this safe method of exchange, and the fact that it involves someone who you make in to superhuman. You project all your social needs onto this album, or something that you'll never actually deal with. That's kind of scary.

KH: That's a part of it. Also I don't even think of myself as a star, I think of myself as a performer , or a musician, or an activist, or a cultural worker, different things everyday. The people I want to perform for are people who are dealing with themselves when possible. I do want to entertain people out of their misery sometimes because I think that's important and valid. If it allowed them to escape in their own head for the while that they needed to take a break, I think that's really valid. I mean, people don't have to be dealing 24-7.

KS: I think that could be really constructive. I wrote my senior thesis on how I thought a fan/star relationship could possibly work positively in someone's life. I used myself as an example; I had idolized someone for a long time. I didn't go nearly as in depth as I had liked to , but it was a really positive thing.

KH: When we perform in Olympia it's a really different situation from when we perform in New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco because people see me walking around. A lot of people have seen me in other capacities, possibly serving them food somewhere. I think it's really positive for people to see us in the community, and then in this other way on the stage. It's like, 'Oh I saw that girl in the park and then I saw her on the stage' and it's not like I am Iggy Pop and I flew down in a helicopter. They're like 'Oh I could do that.' That's how I started doing things. And that's why I try to, when I can, remain as accessible as possible.

KS: So you're saying that a star thing can work positively if the person is seen as a star as well as part of the rest of the world.

KH: I just hope there's some sort of suture between those two things, between being a star and being a person. I mean I've had to somewhat separate them just for me to be able to function. I had to do the same thing when I was a dancer, which is another type of performance. It was a similar separation, in order to maintain some sort of a livability in the situation. But I just hope that it doesn't always have to be a stripper/customer relationship even in punk rock. That's what I'm trying to navigate right now.

KS: You said earlier that You think or yourself more as a performer and an activist, but in the Evan Dando 'zine, although that was a very contextualized piece, you did talk about yourself as being a star, and obviously there was a reason for that. Although you described yourself as a " superhyper Evan Dando groupie", what made you refer to yourself as a star?

KH: I guess it was just because I wrote that during our first stay in England. The pop-star idea is really big there. We were dealing with media on a really immediate level. The press people, right in your face, trying to talk to you a lot. That's when I felt like I was a star because we were in the papers. And I was like 'Whoa, this is big shit for me'. But I don't really think that. I just wrote that in the moment of ,'Oh yeah, I'm a slutty punk feminist star,' or something like that.

KS: But there's something to it, I think.

KH: Yeah, I know, I'm not saying that I'm totally isolated and don't know what's going on, but it's really hard for me to understand (stardom). It's like when you're in a really bad relationship and everyone's telling you so, but you don't listen. You can't see the situation 'cause you're in it. And that's how I feel sometimes; I don't really understand. I mean I've got a pretty limited amount of notoriety. I'm not like fucking Demi Moore or something. I don't really focus on it that much. I did for a while, mainly because I'm interested in figuring out problems.

KS: It seems like we're still circling around what a star really is. And I'm not thinking of a star as you as a person, I'm thinking of it as a shell, a thing you put on, or that other people put on you. It's even separate from the performance to some degree.

KH: Well I see it as analogous to focusing (o)n a character in a novel. I think in certain ways, because of the media culture now, tabloids, etc., rock stars and movie stars and stuff have replaced characters in novels. And I think that people, including myself, follow stars as if they're characters in a novel and their lives are unfolding in front of you. Is there going to be death, is there going to be addiction, will there be affairs?

KS: What's scary is that it's not fictional characters, they're real people.

KH: Right.

KS: And a lot of people can't seem to tell the difference between what they read in tabloids and the real person. And even me, I try to be really sensitive. I can say that I understand my relation to a star as a fan, but I'll see someone in magazines, etc., and I'll see them on the street and I get really nervous or weird because there's something really intense about them to me. Something about their performance has touched something in me and it's almost like you imagine there's some sort of connection between you and something they they've put out there as work.

KH: There can be a lot of misplaced anger in the way people treat stars. It's really hard for me to deal with the fact that Kurt Cobain killed himself. There's a record store in my community right next to the coffee shop where a lot of people who were close to him go. The day after he died, the store hung up this big poster and t-shirt as a Kurt Cobain Memorial in the window. I'm not saying that I expect everybody to be thinking of [their] feelings a million times a day, but it was really, really insensitive. I went in to try to talk with the guy at the record store. It was interesting because he's met me all these times but he never knows who I am. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm female, so obviously I'm no one in music. I 'm not saying that there's a claim that I am someone or something, but I have been involved in the music scene in Olympia for 7 years.

KS: Well it's your career. I don't think there's any shame in saying that.

KH: So I go in there and it's just the thing of saying, 'You know I live in this town, and I think that's really insensitive and I don't want to have to walk by it.' It's not like I'm trying to censor anybody, or that I'm freaked out about death. It's just about how I feel that when people get into positions like Kurt did, it probably had to do with depression and all kinds of things we can speculate on. But I think part of it has to do with the fact that he was totally dehumanized by everyone. He was really exploited. Sure he was a rock star, but he was also a worker; he was fulfilling a function and getting paid a certain amount of money to do that. And I think that a lot of other people make a lot of money off of him. It was really frustrating to me that they day after he died he was still being exploited. Maybe I'm just really sentimental and goopy, but I just felt it was fucked up, and the guy was like, 'Oh I understand, you're just this little fan of his.' I realized how totally condescending people can treat those who are supposed to be fans. It was like 'oh you cute little groupie.'

KS: It's really funny that he would interpret it that way. Cause the way I see it he was totally projecting onto you. He saw you as the person who couldn't really understand what was going on because you were blinded by your fandom and your girldom combined, while he couldn't see that he was hurting real people. That's exactly what I'm talking about: some people just have no idea when they cross the line, especially when it comes to stars. And I think that relates to regular life, too. There are a lot of people who don't know how to treat others.

KH: I think there's anger involved, because I think people tend to treat stars as if they are an endless resource, that's supposed to just keep giving, and gibing. People are like, 'Well I'm paying you for it.' And it's a negrophilic, fuck-the-dead-body idea. I think it's fucked up, boring and not what I personally want to do. So how are do we fight against it? How do we challenge that idea?

KS: Well, it's like we're saying that there are two things going on. There are people; who idolize people and are shy around them, but they are learning about how they want to be or something, and then there are people who are really fucked up about it, people for whom it 's like a death culture, the star culture. It's a way for them to remain numb, to dehumanize others...

KH: Sounds really pornographic, doesn't it? I mean there are a lot of similar elements, like object identification, commodification and money exchange. It's also about power. I grew up totally ascribing to middle class values, one being that I'm supposed to have a certain amount of control in my life, but in reality don't have a lot of that. I 'm constantly told, if I go out walking, somebody can just totally grab my ass and get away with it, and if I'm at work I can totally get shit on by my boss and have to take it. I'm constantly taught that I don't really have control over what happens, like the government... and hating all the decisions, hating this new fucking Proposition 187 in California, which is basically murdering immigrants by denying them medical care. So I feel like I have no control or power. I find an area that I can get control or power in. I could beat people up. Or I could abuse my one body with alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, or whatever. It's this whole mad rush for getting power and control. But I think that there are healthy ways of getting power. And I don't think having control over everything is necessarily the way that I would want to lead my life anyway. It's boring.

KS: I thought it was really interesting when you said earlier that one of the reasons that people want stars to be cartoonish and never change is because they want control over that person. In a sense it's like being dead, if you never change and never contradict yourself.

KH: Well if you just sell your life for safety, then what kind of safety is that? (laughs) But I just don't want to entirely define power in then negative, and say that's the only possibility because I'm really not into the idea of all power being oppressive. I don't think it has to be that way; I think when we start believing that all power is oppressive that we've lost hope.

KS: You become Catherine MacKinnon.

KH: Right, I just think it signals a loss of hope and I'm just not into it. But we're still in this fight, expecting to have all this power and control, and trying to get it any way we can, even in these really unhealthy ways, like controlling our bodies through not eating or using a person in the public eye. I've had negative fame at certain times ,because I've had really abusive things happen to me in the press. A Flipside article said, "Fuck you, Bikini Kill" 11 times in one article. The Washington Post wrote that I claimed I was raped by my father, but I never talked to them. They completely coined that from songs I had written; I guess they assumed that because I wrote about incest, I had to be speaking from first-hand experience because obviously I'm a woman and I have no imagination. There was a Newsweek article that printed a photograph of our band in bikinis, and that was a private photograph of us together. A girl took that picture of us and then sold it without our permission. And then it was said that I was a feminist, a stripper and incest survivor. That was really difficult for me as an erotic dancer to deal with because my full name was printed and a lot of my customers read it. In the picture of me in a bikini you could see my tattoos which meant that I could be positively identified, and my stripper name was now connected with my real name. That meant I basically had to leave that job. They fucked up my livelihood; I mean they made me lose my fucking job.

KS: It's showing complete insensitivity and people especially don't think of sex workers as having any rights at all. They kind of think about stars in the same way...once you get "out there" in certain ways, people think that they can use you in unbelievable ways.

KH: Right, although I do think that fame and notoriety can actually open doors for me oar allow me to access stuff I never had access to, whereas being a sex worker hasn't afforded me the same privilege. There's a huge, huge difference. What I was getting to was – I've gotten a lot of unhealthy attention...Do you know what I mean?

KS: Yeah, well I've seen it happen at every single show; I mean something seems to click in people's heads when they see you up there. There are certain things about you that they know or interpret, and they decide that you're going to be the one they're going to bother. Why does that happen?

KH: I think part of it is that I won't fit a smooth notion of identity because I contradict myself very boldly...I'm not trying to say that I'm this rad martyr fucking person, but I also haven't been willing to say, 'Okay, I'm a feminist and therefore I'm going to wear these really drab clothes and I'm not going to be sexual on stage and I'm going to sing lyrics that are really dogmatic and obvious, that are right out of feminist theory.' although sometimes I do do that. If I am what these guys think as being somewhat sexual, I'm actually being a whole person, not just a cartoon character of what they think a feminist is, or what they think a feminist is, or what they think a feminist performer is, or whatever. I think that's really offensive to them. They see me as contradictory and therefore my whole project is invalid; therefore I suck and I deserve whatever kind of abusive behavior I get. People see that you are a performer whose not reading off of a script, you're not in a movie; you're challenging the idea of one constructed identity when you stray outside of that, basically what it means is that you're alive and you're experiencing things right here and now. I think some people want to kill that, because it 's threatening. It applies to many things. I can't really afford the purity of never doing anything for a major label, or never doing this or that . I negotiate my decisions based on a lot of factors, economic, emotional, etc. I think that can be really threatening. What is really frustrating is that a lot of people have gotten, like, 'Oh, you're really fucked up, you're this big rock star now' and it's confusing to see me as an individual when people are angry at me for being a rock star when I still have to deal with a lot of shit. If you're angry at me because the Washington Post said that I was raped by my father, and it did a lot to destruct my family, that's fucked up it's not glamourous to go out on stage and have guys call me a cunt. To have to deal with that kind of shit and simultaneously have to deal with people saying, 'Well you're a rock star" and blaming me is hard. I didn't create that. You know what I mean?

KS: It 's true that a lot of people are obsessed with this certain kind of purity in the punk rock world or in feminism. It's a very immature attitude because they can't accept you moving forward or changing your mind about things or not just always saying the same thing over and over again.

KH: Or that there's more than one kind of fucking feminism.

KS: Yeah, it's very threatening. It's almost as if you could draw a line between different kinds of stars and why people like them. There are those who stir things up and those who placate their audience, someone like- I mean I don't want to trash people, but  she'll never read this anyway- like Whitney Houston, who I think is robotic in her performance. And a lot of people flock to it, they desperately need it..

KH: I love Whitney Houston.

KS: You love Whitney Houston?

KH: I think Whitney's incredible. For my birthday this year we got a hotel and I watched the Whitney Houston "Live in South Africa" performance, and she did two of my all-time favorite songs, "The Greatest Love of All" and the one that Dolly Parton wrote.

KS: Alright, well... that's how I feel about Whitney Houston, okay?

KH: Don't call Whitney robotic!

KS: She is, too; she's robotic!

KH: She is not.

KS: Well obviously, we have a lot of different ways of looking at things here. It's clear to me that what fans like doesn't have to do with the person as a performer in a way. There's something really different that you and I see in her performance. Not that her personality doesn't inform her performance, but I see a separation between the two. A person can be very different from who they are as a star, and people can see really different things in the same star.

KH: We don't really know what a fan is because threw are a million different readings that can come from a text, a performance, or whatever. Each person brings their ideas, background, privileges and system of identification to it. Whitney does maintain a really big gap between her and her fans. She's probably not reading her mail. She seems to have a pretty complete separation, it seems whereas I'm really navigating that relationship, because I don't really want to commodify myself or be commodified. Especially because I'm an abuse survivor, and it's a traditional position for me to be in, to objectify myself and kind of turn myself into a lamp. I think a lot of performers come from backgrounds like that, have taken a lot of shit as kids or as women or as boys or...

KS: Why do you think people do become stars then, do you think they thing that they have to take the abuse and that it's an abusive thing or do you think they get good things out of it, or what?

KH: Well, all I can talk about again is in terms of me. I don't know why Whitney became a star, and I can't speak for other people, I know that I learned as a child to leave my body for certain reasons which I'm not going to discuss.

S: No, you don't have to.

KH: It's known in the domestic violence/sexual assault community as 'disassociation', although it's not like you have these really severe abuse situations to do it; a lot of people do it. You're able to leave your body and do whatever you have to do, like pretend you're running through a jungle or whatever people do to stay OK. You do it during a painful experience or trauma, when maybe somebody you really love or trust is abusing you, taking advantage of you, objectifying you, or using you in a way that isn't cool with you. That's a survival mechanism and it's completely valid. I see it as a skill, to a certain extent. I don't want to glamorize abuse in any way but I do know that I have learned things from it that I'm not going to belittle, because that's my life.

KS: Well in your life that's the way you learned it , but maybe you would've learned it another way if you had a different experience.

KH: Right. But at the same time, I've learned how not to be in my body for various reasons. What I'm interested in right now is creating safe enough spaces that I can be in my body so that I can deal with painful things that I couldn't deal with maybe when I was a child, or maybe even last year, even at shows where guys assault me. But you know it's hard, because I got really good at dissociating. When I was working as a stripper, that skill really came in handy. People could touch me and I wouldn't feel it. And I think that translates nicely into the performance personality and the star personality of objectifying yourself and being consumed.

KS: But you make it sound like performance is a really bad thing.

KH: I think it is to a certain extent. I've just realized that there's a lot of unhealthiness there and right now, I'm resisting the idea that I'm consumable. I don't always make the best decision. I'm not always doing the most radical, subversive thing. I'm just navigating that and always trying to find a new way to subvert the status quo. If you're doing anything somewhat interesting, you're gonna come up against opposition. Because of that opposition, sometimes I have to numb out. I can't take seriously everybody who calls me rock star or bitch or cunt or slut or whore. Kathleen Hanna cannot deal with internalizing that and sometimes I have too... Kathleen has to go away.

KS: I'm just saying though that there must be things about being a star or an activist/performer that make you believe in it enough that it is worth it for yo to have to deal with that kind of stuff.

KH: Right. These are the things that are the benefits to me: a) I can earn a living with this now, because people will know who I am, b) I can get things done and I can help my friends hook up with other people because I travel a lot and I get told about a lot of things that are going on. I get handed a lot of resources. So I can play intermediary between an activist in one place and a performance artist in another who want to do a benefit. I can be this little point on a map and in between these other people.

KS: Don't you think that your performance itself makes you feel better or helps you work out things or that it does that for fans to some extent?

KH: They say it does, but it's hard for me to say. It does for me sometimes. It's totally powerful for me to be up on stage, to have this microphone and say whatever I want, taking up sonic space. That can be very powerful.

KS: That's very punk rock.

KH: Being female and doing that can be totally powerful. Even the fact that I can do things that are interesting to me and which push me further philosophically and politically makes me cream. I mean it's good, I like it.

KS: Good, that's what I thought.

KH: I say thumbs up.

KS: I say thumbs up, you and Whitney just keep it up.

[usaigi]

In honor of Trans Visibility Day, Here a Peak of the Matt's Quinceañera One-Shot Coming Soon (Part of the Mexican!Matt AU)

Girls aren’t aggressive. Sure, youth is associated with rebellion, crisis, and aversion, but youth associated with aggression and violence is synonymous with boyhood. Which Maite Murdock isn’t. 

Despite the bruises on her knuckles and the cut on her lip, her lips taste like strawberry chapstick and her chipped nails are a peachy pink. She’s a girl. She is. 

Maite writes an essay about it after punching Donnie Walsh in the face, leaving him with a shiny black eye in retaliation for calling Mindy Davis a dyke. Walsh had called Maite a dyke countless times before, an incontrovertible insult, like calling a donkey an ass. But Maite had always refused to give Walsh the reaction he so clearly wanted, opting to act like the Virgen is calling her instead of humoring his dull-witted bigotry.

It’s different when it’s Mindy; she’s soft and gentle and smells like cheap vanilla body spray. She always offers to guide Maite not because she thinks she needs the help but because she likes to be close to her when they talk about the class reading. Mindy is passive, nonconfrontational, tears form in her eyes where fire rages in Maite’s heart. Maite doesn’t have many friends; not many people want to be friends with the psychotic blind girl with a crazy good aim. So she protects the handful of people who do tolerate her with the smoldering rage that burns inside.

The school’s principal, after giving her a stern talk about how this isn’t “appropriate behavior for a young lady” and threatening suspicious (or worst, mandated therapy) if her behavior doesn’t change, assigns her an essay as punishment. Maite wouldn’t care about being disciplined if it didn’t jeopardize her ability to get into college so she bites her tongue. 

Kind of.

You can take the girl out of the fight but you can’t take the fight out of the girl. 

So Maite, ever the rebel, focuses her mandatory essay on “feminity” according to the Riot grrrl subculture movement and the disarticulation-re-articulation of quote-on-quote “masculine characteristics in girls.” How certain behaviors and expectations were negatively used against women and how they reclaimed them to have adjacency over their oppression. 

The school’s librarian laughs and says she didn’t expect anything different when Maite proposes her thesis statement and asks for help looking for sources. A week later, Maite humbly and with all the grace of a lady taps her way to the principal office to hand deliver her essay. Fine, girls aren’t aggressive. But girls don’t need to take shit either.

[therockincoquette]

for shits and giggles

(i'm feeling very angry rn so i wrote a riot grrrl song to make me feel better)

is it so hard to understand?

that without hold to hand

it's not an idea all that grand

i can't bear to be touched

and even if i did

what a load of fucking gid

you'd be to want to hold me

oh boys will be boys

and girls will be girls

why can anyone see me?

and i'll tell you what

i'm done i want it shut

i can't end up like mummy and daddy

for shits and giggles

for jokes and clowns and boys

nothing but stupid mindless noise

oh why can't they see?

i'm deadly as can be

to scream and shout is the one way i am free lifes for shits and giggles

did god put me here to live in constant fear? the masses go to cheer

whenever i get hit in the fucking head or something like that. they all know it drives me fucking mad. they all know i sob because i'm so fucking scared of them .but really? they should be afraid of me.

i'll tell you why after the chorus

for shits and giggles

for jokes and clowns and boys

nothing but stupid mindless noise

oh why can't they see?

i'm lethal as can be

when i scream and shout i'll know that i am free lifes for shits and giggles

human nature says if you attack me i'll attack you

but my mind says if i fight back i'll be through

so i take it i've been quiet and submissive and it makes me want to die

when i'm manic and angry

i leave the room to cry

just because i'm emotional doesn't mean i can't feel

life has taken everything

what's mine is theirs to steal

for shits and giggles fucks for shits and giggles

i am more than a joke

i am a person

i was never for shits and fucking giggles

[cosmic-nonconstant]

1990s Stranger Things Sequel Please

I have been fantasizing about a stranger things sequel series that takes place in the 90s…

All the young ones are in their 20s and in different stages of “moving on” (or totally not moving on) from the events of the first series

Hopper’s entire personality is “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Joyce has gone full Terminator 2 Sarah Connor

The homages to iconic 90s horror/thriller… Scream, Blair Witch, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, From Dusk Til Dawn, Speed, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Independence Day, THE CRAFT. THE CROW.

(They cheated and already gave us Jurassic Park and Silence of the Lambs but STILL)

And non-horror - CLUELESS, EMPIRE RECORDS, The Iron Giant, Ghost, Men in Black, You’ve Got Mail, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Groundhog Day. Seinfeld 💀

THE X-FILES

You know what else happened in the 90s? More mainstream queer media

Gay. Gay is in. Gay is hot. I want some gay. Gay it’s gonna be. (with 100% more actually talking about it with everyone!!!)

The overall tone of the show shifts to my true joy of the 90s - campy, soapy supernatural TV

We’re talking Charmed. We’re talking *Buffy the dang Vampire Slayer*

Found family, found family, found familyyyy

SNAPPY, sassy dialogue!

Soap-opera quality melodrama (yes, I mean even more of this) played 100% seriously

A villain-turned-friend/love-interest! (but hopefully not any villain we’ve already met - I got absolutely nothing for Billy, sorry not sorry)

Vecna is up for consideration tho LMAO

Someone in the Party owns a bar now that inexplicably has too-famous 90s musical artists performing there all the time

and Corroded Coffin, of course

Just, the music. Grunge. Gangsta rap. Riot grrrl 😩

Someone probably has kids now but please not Steve and Nancy

Also, teen Holly Wheeler?

Y2K-prepping (you know Murray would be all over this) ((and fight with Suzie about it because of course she knew it was going to be fine)) (((OR WAS IT??)))

I just… I’m old and I want to see my friends dealing with more shit when they grow up 😭

[andromerot]

process of claudiaplaylist making is taking me through my teen angst playlists.... like i think i actually had good taste when i was 15. all of this queercore riot grrrl punk shit fucks actually i had GREAT music taste. NOT CRINGE!! whats happened to me ...

[aradiabotism]

Aradiabotism’s Awful No Good Very Bad Pinned

REQUESTS ARE : OPEN! 0/5 SLOTS FILLED!

Hello! My name is Bethel, but you can also call me Aradia or Aradiabot if you like. I use a variety of pronouns, including zhe/zheyr, xai/xhyn, shx/hxr, ey/em, and zey/zem as my personal favorites. It may be unconventional or whatever, but I do not use she/her, he/him, it/its, or they/them. I will provide a guide on how to use my two favorite pronoun sets below the cut :)

I’m a mean angry man-hating feminist lesbian. /half joke. My style of making collages is actually inspired by some riot grrrl zines, fun fact. Oh, yeah. That’s what I do on this blog. I make collages. I make collages for fandoms, OCs, ships, aesthetics, movements, basically anything! Even pride flags*!

*as of now, I will do pretty much any queer identity as long as you send me a link to the flag or a picture of the flag. As long as it doesn’t fit in my DNI!

I don’t wanna overwhelm your senses so more rambling + DNI + pronoun guide beneath the cut :)

current to-do list : aradiabot collage (personal), godcat collage (personal), transfem erivris <3< collage (personal), tavnep <3 collage (personal), evan redditstuck collage (personal)

DO NOT INTERACT : radqueers/TransIDs, discourse accounts of any kind (syscourse included), proshippers, anti-religion (I get the concept but I’m personally religious and it just feels weird to talk with someone who I know doesn’t respect that), basic criteria ofc, transphobic radfems/TERFs, exclusionists, and uhh idk man please just be Normal Respectful People.

BEFORE YOU FOLLOW : I will not share my stance on *any* discourse other than shipcourse, I am avidly anti-ship but I also stand for anti-harassment. I support most good faith identities (aside from TransIDs/radqueer shit, but I don’t even know if that qualifies as good faith) including mspec lesbians/gays! I draw all the art for my collages so requests will take longer than you’re expecting. I do not typically draw the art for pfps/icons unless requested to do so (I will happily do so btw I just usually don’t). YES, I will include your niche headcanons in my art! I love niche headcanons! You want me to draw Vriska Serket using crutches decorated with stickers? Done. Your blorbo with a nose ring? You got it! Your favorite ship wearing a really ugly pair of matching sweaters? ABSOLUTELY! Give me ALLLLL your weird and hyper specific headcanons >:)

BEFORE YOU REQUEST: Egbert will automatically be transfem in any request involving her, im sorry guys but I’m a June truther forever. I was debating on allowing other headcanons of her but I just can’t my June heart can’t handle her being male.

DO NOT REQUEST :

apart from my DNI, I have some ships/characters/fandoms im not comfortable making collages for. As a whole, my blog accepts collage requests for *any* fandom except the ones listed below!

Hetalia

Countryhumans/statehumans/etc

Most creepypastas (I have a weak stomach yall)

Real People (including Minecraft YouTubers im sorry gays 😭)

Menhera Chan characters

I also won’t do requests involving certain characters!

Haiji from Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls

The Ancestor from Homestuck (ex, The Grand Highblood)

Doc Scratch from Homestuck

Dottore/The Doctor from Genshin Impact

As for ships, I will not do these:

Romantic/Flushed/<3 meowrails/nepquius. They are qpps in my heart forever.

ANY form of Tavros x Vriska

Meenah x Vriska ( a lot of people forget that Vris was a MINOR when they started dating

Davejade (including davejadekat) (I’ll do jadekat by itself tho)

Saioma/Saiouma/however u spell it

Kanaya Maryam x Men (unless it’s <> I guess)

Rose Lalonde x Men

Honestly any dancestor x troll ship, there’s massive age gaps there that I don’t feel comfortable with.

ANY proship. Including abusive/toxic.

finally here’s the promised guide for how to use my two favorite pronoun sets, zhe/zheyr and xai/xhyn.

FORMAT : NOMINATIVE / ACCUSATIVE / PRONOMINAL POSSESSIVE / PREDICATIVE POSSESSIVE / REFLEXIVE (example : she/her/her/hers/herself)

Zhe/Zheyr/Zheyr/Zheyrs/Zheyrself

Have you met Bethel? Zhe runs a tumblr blog. Yeah, aradiabots? That’s zheyr blog! All the art zhe posts is zheyrs. Zhe’re cool, I guess, but zhe talks way too much about zheyrself.

Xai/Xhyn/Xhyn/Xais/Xaiself

Hey, isn’t that Bethel? Xai is probably writing something to post on xais blog. Xai really never shut up xhyn blog. It’s all xhyn talk about lately. Xai must be really proud of xaiself.

okay that’s it you should follow me while you’re here :)

[cjdonahue]

In contrast to that rage and power, here is the handwritten note from the author of the zine to the owner of the collection. These notes were common in my exploration of the Riot Grrrl zines in the archives. So common that they could be found in almost every single issue I picked up and skimmed during the brief period we were there. Quite noticeably the notes would be incredibly sweet and positive, as well as inviting future correspondence and community. Trading handmade zines, with handmade notes like this, was a huge part of this era of Riot Girrrl and zine culture. To share art is a vulnerable thing, so I imagine there was some solace found in other people having and expressing similar opinions in similar ways.  It may be a very Gen Z take, but it seems to me that these sorts of interactions, of sharing art and keeping correspondence, are the direct precursor to Tumblr’s use of notes and mutuals. As far as community building goes, it is a rare to find sincere and genuine handwritten notes, which suggests that despite all the rage and fuck-shit-up mentality of Riot Grrrl, there is real positive side affects of finding other people who are as pissed off as you are.

[soupedepates]

Riot grrrl playlistttt✨️✨️ Because it's riot grrrl cw rape, domestic abuse, sexism, discrimination, sex, sexual violence, etc. I also didn't do a background check on all the artists nor on the lyrics, so beware of transphobia and terf discourse. Kick fascists, be aggressive, care for your pack and those who need it. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.

✨️✨️✨️

I wish I was a Riot Grrrl - Destructo Disk (it introduced me to the genre so I HAD to put it here) I hate my mom - GRLWOOD Take off your clothes - GRLWOOD Eat Shit - Doll Skin On the Floor - WHOREMONES Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill Deceptacon - Le Tigre Pandemic - The Royal They Phanta - Le Tigre Cool Schmool - Bratmobile Terrorist - Heavens to Betsy Cowards in the castle - The Anti-queens Nice nice - Dazey and the scouts Oh Bondage! Up Yours! - XRay Spex What's Up Girl - Catisfaction Candy - Bikini Kill

✨️✨️✨️

More than 1% of the Gaza population has been killed by Israel. It's about 25 700 people. Mostly women and children. The historical patrimony is being destroyed. Gaza's culture, identity and people are being methodically eradicated. Say it. It's a genocide. Genocide.

Israel is genociding Palestinians.

It's a genocide.

Support Palestinians. If you can donate, then donate. I can't. But what I can do is sending this link:

One click a day. Nothing more. It helps raising money for the people.

Make noise. We have a mouth and we shall scream.

Follow her:

Bisan Owda is living the genocide and fighting every day for information. Never. Stop. Making noises.

Be the punk, the riot grrrrl, that kills the mood.

[notsogreatpotoo]

omg someone *asking* me to rant about music

Dog Park Dissidents, gay asf queercore punk band. they only got an album and a single out rn, but they are damn good. specific song recs here are Queer as in Fuck You, Rev Your Motor, n Bad Dog

Dream Nails, british riot grrrl feminist punk shit. theyve been active for a while, but I havent gotten deep into their stuff, so take a look around their discography if ya like em. song recs: Fascism is Coming, Vagina police 2.0, Kiss My Fist, Corporate Realness, and DIY

The Oozes, pissed-off british woman-led punk band. theyve also only been around since 2020, but theyve got some good stuff. of everything here i feel the most confident that hobie would listen to this one. song recs: Ready, Sickening, Wanker, and DBSAC

Queen Zee, queercore, drag queen-led (i think? hard to find info there) punk shit. you wont believe this, but theyve only out out one album lmao. song recs: Sissy Fists, Victim Age, I Hate Your New Boyfriend, n Hunger Pains

Anti-Flag, US anarchopunk band. Hobie pry wouldnt actually listen to this, cause its about the US, but like. theyre good i promise lol. Song recs: Emigre, Depleted Uranium is a War Crime, Hate Conquers All, Christian Nationalist, The Disease, Laugh Cry Smile Die, The Hazardous, and Work & Struggle

a few bands that arent punk but that are very much leftist or gay asf, for your consideration <3: Rage Against the Machine, Fever 333, Stray From the Path, underscores, You Love Her, food house, and Gupi

that post asking for recommendations is the best decision i ever made bc this all sounds?? so cool??!!

thank you so much for the recommendations AND for giving mini descriptions, i’m very excited to listen <3

have a wonderful day you lovely person!!

[riotgrrrl200]

Female Rage in Music vs Male Rage in Music

As I have previously discussed, I think that Lil Mariko’s music and others like it are changing the look and sound of Riot Grrrl music while also being able to channel the feeling of the original movement. Lil Mariko has a very different sound and her music technically does not fit into the punk genre but rather the hip-hop/rap/screamo genre. I think Lil Mariko actually does a lot for feminism but just in a different way. I think that the absurdity of some of her songs are actually in order to confront many sexist views. A lot of her criticism comes from the violence within her music. A lot of her songs are about how she feels about different actions that men do. She has a song titled “100 Dicks” and the song confronts the fact that she is sent many unsolicited pictures of mens penises frequently. She discusses in the song how that makes her feel and she expresses that it makes her very mad. A lot of the emotion in her songs come from aggression in her style of singing. She frequently dips into a screamo voice in many of her songs which helps to communicate how frustrating and angry she is that these men feel entitled enough to send her disturbing images. This is just one example of her songs that discuss how men make her feel but many of them are just as blunt and aggressive and “100 Dicks”. 

As I mentioned earlier, some people think that her music is too aggressive but I see Lil Mariko’s works thus far as very feminist and empowering. This brings up the concept of punching up. It is no secret that we live in a patriarchal society but the hierarchy of genders is that men are at the top then women are below them and at this point, all people of other genders are at the very bottom. Punching up is when the ones who are being oppressed are able to strike those at the top in an effort to knock them down a peg. In the case of Lil Mariko, she is punching up. While her music is a bit aggressive and she does promote violence frequently, her fanbase is majorly composed of angry women who need to relate about how things that are patriarchal in nature make women feel. I feel as though the people listening to her music have been oppressed enough to not take her music seriously. A common theme that I have noticed is that there is lots of fragility in communities that have not been oppressed. This most likely comes from the fact that many people who do not experience frequent oppression (like white men in America) do not have the emotional tenacity that oppressed groups have. When it comes to music and art forms of any kind there is a lot left up to interpretation but if it is catering to an oppressed group, there is more of a chance that these groups will not take the lines of the song seriously. Instead, women and other non-men understand that when Lil Mariko says that she would kill a man that touched her without consent, that she is really reacting to the years of oppression, misogyny, sexual assault and r*pe cases that were ignored, threats of violence made by men, blatant objectification, and many many more things that women have to encounter throughout their lives rather than taking the lyrics as how she truly feels. Overt sexism is a major issue within the music industry but especially the rap industry. It thrives on the concepts of sex, drugs, and money and a lot of the rap culture is based on putting women down. For example, many songs use the word “slut” to refer to women and for a man to say that, it is oppressive but Lil Mariko has a song titled, “Hi, I'm a Slut” in an effort to reclaim the word. Notorious B.I.G. is a very popular artist in the rap community and one of his songs titled “Bust A Nut” is a very vile song. It only refers to women as sluts and bitches and the song gives women no value other than to be something to have sex with. Some notable lines are: “Fucking bitches 'til they assholes bleed” and “Spit it on my gut and slurp that shit back up; Ain't that a slut,; (Hell yeah) she even take it in the butt”. The rap community has been pushing harmful rhetorics for years and I do not think they are going to stop anytime soon. I think that if the problem isn’t going to go away then artists like Lil Mariko should continue to push out songs that are just as violent. 

Sources:

https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/12/21/are-you-listening-misogyny-in-rap-music-and-what-it-means-for-women-in-society/

https://genius.com/Lil-mariko-hi-im-a-slut-lyricshttps://genius.com/Lil-mariko-100-dicks-lyrics

[avlfya]

AVLFYA takes no shit!