#but i have no way of actually verifying this claim so i write it in the tags instead of making a youtube video about it

[weiszklee]

Recently watched this JohntheDuncan video, and it gives some great insights into what I too see as a very real and very worrying trend, of queerphobia in general and lately transphobia specifically acting as a sort of uniting cause for many rightwing groups, from neo-Nazis to Evangelicals to radfems to zionists to garden-variety conservatives to liberal capitalist institutions.

And I too don't think this uneasy alliance is a coincidence, and I too don't think it's just strategic either. All these groups really do pursue transphobia for its own merits, so to say. Transphobia is right at home in all these disparate ideologies. And it's easy to find examples of people migrating from one of these to the other, already made acquainted via transphobia.

But I don't think Duncan's ultimate thesis here is correct, that all these different ideologies are mere offshoots of some nebulous but all-encompassing historical force of white-supremacist cishet-patriarchal colonialist capitalism. I just don't think reality works like that. If you widen your view that much, all you're left with being able to say is either untrue or trivial. The goals and the role that transphobia plays in these groups is just too different, and you lose all this important specificity if you try to paint such a huge universal throughline for all of them.

Different groups adopting similar narratives just doesn't actually tell you all that much about these groups. Some narratives are just so convincing or so present within wider society for random reasons, that it's easy to land on them independently. So I can't give too much credence to Duncan's presented evidence of the presence of narratives around infiltrators and so on.

Trans people themselves are very capable of producing these very narratives as well, see for example transmedicalists and queer inclusionists accusing each other of being infiltrating agents of the patriarchy. And no, I don't think these accusations are expressions of white-supremacist colonialist capitalist brainwashing or whatever. It's just a pattern of thought people tend to fall into sometimes, especially under stress. And it's a pattern often fostered and exploited in the process of radicalisation, so we shouldn't be surprised to see it so prominently and loudly repeated over and over by so many different groups. It doesn't mean much. It especially doesn't mean that all these groups grow from the same root.

[sakuravalelp]

Phantom letters - DPXDC PROMPT

The bats wake up one day to the internet going crazy; people around the world were getting letters from they're diseased loved ones. The reactions are mixed, from people being outraged for the "prank" to people crying in melancholy at getting closure.

All the letters have something in common: They're closed with a green sealing wax that had an stylize DP and the name Phantom beneath it. Posts about the cards were using the # Phantom Letters.

The bats are discussing the viral posts in the cave when Alfred comes holding a basket filled with letters, announcing they were left at the doors. The letters had the sealing wax that they recognize from the posts. Checking the cameras they can see how they glitch before the basket appears.

Alfred starts to distribute the letters that had only one destinatary. Letters from each Thomas and Martha to both Bruce and Alfred. Letters from each John and Mary to Dick. A letter from Catherine to Jason. A letter from the Drake's to Tim, and another one to Bruce.

Once they had calmed down enough from the shock, Alfred proceeded to read the shared recipients. From Thomas and Martha to "The grandchildren we never got to meet." From John and Mary to "the family that took our little Robin in." Letters from Catherine to "My little boys family." The letters were directed to people the deceased didn't get to meet.

As much as the mere existence of the letters tugged at their hearts, they decided to not read them until they verified that the handwriting actually belong to the ones it claimed. They checked each letter, and in the end confirmed the letters were in fact from they're lost love ones.

After much discussion, each person makes the decision to read they're own letters later in private, and they proceed to read the ones that shared recipients out loud. The letter mentioned specifics like names and events that the deceased shouldn't have been able to know, including they're vigilante abilities, which had them pause each time to panic a bit. But what was more interested were certain pieces of the letters that mentioned a Prince Phantom.

"Prince Phantom said to don't mention things past our death, but it wasn't a command, so we're hoping this won't be much of a problem." - John and Mary

"I still can't believe Prince Phantom is letting us do this, but I'm so glad." - Catherine

It finally paints the mystery in a more concerning light when at the end of Thomas and Martha's letter there is a call for help.

"We're sorry for ending the letter on a serious tone, but seeing the kind of job you all get involved in, we wanted to ask: Could you please help Prince Phantom? Phantom had asked us to not give information about this, but he's so young, and has already been hurt so much. Please, check on Amity Park, Illinois."

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Meanwhile, team Phantom has decided that they needed to get the news about the GIW out of Amity and ask for help. Two problems:

the GIW blocks any technological attempt made.

People might be afraid to learn that ghosts exist and side with the GIW.

As a way to deal with the public image, Phantom opens a possibility that the death have never had:

"All afterlives are open to write letters to their love ones that are still alive today. Nothing that includes threats, and don't go talking about the anti-ecto acts or Amity Park yet, we're trying to ease people into our existence first. Also, I know you all check on your love ones when the veil is thin, but please keep the things you shouldn't know out of the letters if possible. If you want your letter to be sent in the first batch, make sure to deliver your letter before the week ends."

Letters are a good way to reconnect people with the death, they aren't digital, and the GIW won't be able to intercept letters if they're send through inter-dimensional portals. Two birds in one shot.

[communist-ojou-sama]

Like, this may come as a shock to people like Tumblr liberals who are totally stuck in the Western anglophone neoliberal ideology echo-chamber but like, outside of the west, out there where the majority of the worlds people live, Kwame Nkrumah's thought is taken more seriously than Milton Friedman's. So why will left liberals engage with Friedman's thought, even if only to debunk it, but not engage at all with Nkrumah's writings on neocolonialism, and just write it off?

There's a common charge leveled by supposedly "open-minded" liberals toward anti-imperialists, that we just 'blindly' support any force that's contravailing US the US on a regional or global scale, but how am I supposed to take this seriously as anything but projection?

We anti-imperialists often make specific, verifiable claims about happenings in global geopol, such as that the so-called "Free Syrian Army" consisted mostly of salafi jihadists allowed into Syria through their northern border with Turkey, and that it doesn't make sense that a civil war could simply Materialize in a country like Syria which right before the war started had one of the lowest ratios of guns to people in the world, or that the Maidan coup regime that swept into power in Kiev in 2014 was heavily infiltrated with fascists, and would not have been able to consolidate power without the instrumentalisation of fascist gangs and paramilitary organizations.

The liberal response to these specific claims, then, is to point to reports from corporate media with every incentive to lie, themselves doing no independent investigation but instead parroting verbatim the word of the State Department as fact, and dismissing all independent media investigations out of hand with no further thought.

In a situation such as this, can that response really be considered "open-minded"? It seems that time and time again intellectual rigor is reserved for discussions of technocratic tinkering within the west's iron curtain, and not the lives of people outside of it.

There's plenty of brain-juice to be expended on justifying why the US economy is actually in good shape and the people saying they're struggling more than before are just stupid, but when it comes to considering why African heads of state choose the China Development Bank over the IMF as an economic partner or Russia over the NATO states as security partners, these leaders of millions are dismissively written off as histrionically anti-Western, paranoid, and too mentally weak to see through Russian and Chinese propaganda. Is it this really a 'rational' way to look at the world?

Personally, I think not.

[survivalove]

debunking lies zutara shippers say about the atla creators & writers

disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement or defense of bryke or anyone mentioned. literally just debunking false statements i see spread throughout and outside the fandom as it pertains to kataang

1. that bryke made kataang endgame because the nice guy should get the girl

this is something I see often usually linked with this video of a man ⬇️ who they claim to be bryan/mike echoing this sentiment.

this man is in fact john o’bryan, one of the three known zk shippers in the writers’ room (we’ll expand on this in point 5) talking about how he saw aang. not the creators. so of course it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he doesn’t even like kataang in the first place.

2. that bryke made kataang endgame last minute and zutara was the original pairing

bryan and mike (notice how i’m using both of their names separately. this too will be important in the next point) have talked about how kataang was planned since they originally wrote the show.

they have also talked ad nauseam in a video (which I will not share here cuz it made a lot of ppl angry) about why they do not like zutara and its shippers, so this entire point is bogus.

++ the reason why they say zk was the original pairing is because of one of the zk writers (joshua hamilton) wrote this in the atla fun facts that used to run on tv. (we’ll get into him later) those atla fun facts contain a lot of inaccurate/non canon “facts” which you can check and verify on avatar wiki if you know what i’m talking about.

3. that aang is bryke’s self insert (specifically mike)

yeah, here’s where the separation becomes important. bryan (L) and mike (R) are two different men. mike has never said that aang was his self-insert, nor has he directly talked about relating to aang. bryan, however, constantly talks about how much he relates to zuko. even, going as far to say he tries to think like zuko when he writes characters and shows.

the only time mike has come close to saying he relates to aang is when dante said he thinks mike is more like aang while bryan is more like zuko, and they, mostly bryan, agreed. (mike has actually said he relates to korra more than aang but hey) bryan also is the one who drew mike’s beard on adult aang because he considered it a nice reference to his friend. this is the main reason why shippers ran with that self-insert narrative because half the time, they think bryke is actually one person ☠️

++ in fact, aang’s original character design is based off the mixed black-chinese son of sifu kisu

4. that atla was supposed to have a season 4 where katara and zuko got together

this is mostly something that has come out of a fabricated interview by the head writer, aaron ehasz. he was allegedly asked what he would have liked to do if given the chance to write a fourth season of the show and talked about an azula redemption arc among other things. zutaras then made up a whole fake interview including that he wanted to make the two characters endgame.

ehasz then came out to say that most of these “interviews” were faked and that he has never talked about having a preference for any ship. if you go on his twitter, you will see him talking about an azula redemption arc tho.

as for atla having a 4th season at all, it was never intended. the creators, the music composers have all said at various points in time, the show was written and pitched as three seasons, three elements.

5. that most of the other writers shipped zutara and bryke’s authoritarianism shut it down

as I said above, only three writers on the original show have come out to say they preferred zk at some point. atla has had a total of 21 staff writers. 3 out of 21 is not most if you ask me.

as for bryke (yes now i’m using the shorthand cuz i proved my point earlier) being authoritarians, no writer or staff that has worked with them on the show has said this so…? idk where that came from but i’m not here to back them up just mention facts.

6. that all the women who worked on the franchise shipped zutara while only men shipped kataang

atla has very few female staff as it is:

5 writers (elizabeth welch: zk; others: unknown)

1 director (unknown)

5 storyboard/character artists (lauren montgomery: ka; elsa garagarza: ka; angela song mueller: zk; others: unknown)

1 comic writer (faith erin hicks: ka)

2 comic artists (gurihiru: ka)

++ mae whitman (katara’s voice actress) has expressed her like for both ships throughout the years.

so i’m not sure what defines all and only for some ppl but those definitions are not in my dictionary. disclaimer: i’m not declaring anyone here as a shipper in any official sense. this is just based off statements they have made that you can google!

7. that katara is written poorly in post-atla content because of kataang/bryke

I mean the first part isn’t really a lie, more of an opinion which I can agree with to an extent.

why I mention this here is because zks will not only go on a tangent and link the misogyny in the writing to a m/f ship and say the other m/f ship would have been more feminist…

but they also refuse to hold all the men involved accountable. like I said, 3 known atla writers shipped zk and 2 of them (joshua & john) were men (who would’ve thought men could like a ship and it could still be considered feminist 😃). they were also 2 out of only 4 atla writers that came back for legend of korra, outside of the creators. (19 to 4 ☠️ no comment). these shippers very well know this and instead of holding these men accountable for the misogynistic writing, they instead brag about them shipping it and ask them about zk whenever they have the chance.

another example is gene luen yang, a comic writer who again shipped zk (another man GASPPPPP) responsible for the first 5 comic books. everyone knows his comics suck in terms of characterization, particularly katara’s. in fact zutaras have made multiple threads on how poor the writing is. funnily enough, they always fail to mention that gly was the script writer or acknowledge his part in this mischaracterization, while bragging about him shipping zk in other posts. ironic.

meanwhile, bryke have never offered writers’ commentary on any of gly’s comics besides the search - mike (because they were mostly writing legend of korra during his run.)

basically these shippers don’t care about misogyny or holding male writers accountable if they ship zk which is funny because I thought it was… for the female gaze? why are you hyping men shipping it anyway? confusion.

[bcacstuff]

The conversation Alice had with a fan and you mention that there is stong language tell more about that? Was it her who used it to the fan and was it fan who did that or talking shit about Sam?

I think you meant t write 'slip' 😉

So yes, before all kind of crazy stories start to occur, and this is actually the subject I wanted to address but as well had to think about how to do it in a correct way, as honest as I possibly can but also with integrity.

You see, it concerns DMs, and yes, meanwhile someone showed them to me and I have read them. I could surely have said no, I don't want that, but at the same time, I had 2 Anons claiming Alice had answered fans in DM. I showed you part of the Anon message:

"Alice has been replying to a fan in DM this I know 10000% saying Sam followed her and sent her DM and now she’s posted in London."

The rest was more or less calling Sam out, so i didn't like to post that part.

So I felt a bit in dubio, one side doesn't want to be secretive, the other side is thinking, those are DMs, not meant for public consumption to begin with.

Also, I need to emphasize that I was shown these DMs second hand. There is no way I can verify. I'm not saying I don't trust the person who showed them to me, I'm merely saying, I can not verify how genuine they are, is this really what this person in DM said or not. So I really would emphasize this and keep that in mind when reading the rest of this post.

I'm not literally gonna write what was in the DMs, but will try to give an objective summary of it.

I saw 2 DM convo's, by 2 fans separately and not at the same time with Alice. One DM convo was short, fan asking, she answered, th other was a little longer more a little convo. Both starting with asking her how she got Sam following her. She answered both. (which I have to say I find surprising, it is quite easy to ignore). But okay, she seemed to have answered both of them. Telling how Sam slid into her DMs, now I don't feel that is something new, that part we know (hence I feel I can tell that part). And Anon 2, i don't know when, I just know he started following her on 13 June. She went on with more personal stuff he did and said they DM-ed daily.

But she was also sort of bragging that he invited her to London. Now both DMs were before this weekend. One started on 20 June, and they ended last Wednesday. So nobody knew by then Sam was going to be in London and at the tennis match. My Anon also wrote Fridaynight, before we knew he was in London, but she wrote because Alice posted a picture tagging her hotel in London. And yeah, your question ismy question as well, why on earth did she felt the need to advertise that?

Then in both DMs she suddenly (and imo unnecessarily) said something on Sam's behalve which was not so nice. Something both fans I know felt hurt by. You could say, perhaps he told her about fans harassing women he's been connected with somehow, but from what i saw these fans were not harassing, were asking her something in a friendly way, curiosity, she could have ignored, or simply have given a short answer without all the rest. I feel it was not her place to say something like that on his behalf, whether it is true or not, it was not on her to do so.

I'm not gonna spell out what exactly was said, but it was unkind, hurtful for the (curious) fans, and unnecessary. I know some might have their thoughts about the fans contacting her, and I in no way would encourage anybody to do so (and I surely never did or will do so myself). But that is not a reason to be hurtful and say things on someone else's behalf that hurt his fans.

As said, and i emphasize again I can not verify this all, if that is really what she said. And that is also why I wish not to spell something like that out, here my integrity is at play. I just can say, the DMs didn't look fabricated/photoshopped or anything. But I just can't verify.

Anyway, whatever happened to Be Kind!?

[unfortunately-a-miraculous-fan]

Every goddamn day, I think about how Chameleon was a very stupid episode, but for the exact opposite reason that I initially thought it was.

I always thought it was because the entire class was acting unreasonably stupid, but they were actually pretty reasonable, all things considered.

It was Marinette's writing that was the issue.

You're not gonna complain about your assigned seat being moved around to accommodate a disabled new student, nor demand proof of her disability, that would just be a dick move. (It doesn't make sense for the ENTIRE CLASS to be moved around, but I'll ignore that point because it's just kind of a nitpick.)

Many members of the class have personally met at least one celebrity, with a few classmates even being celebrities themselves. Lila's stories are certainly out there, even by this class' standards. But it's her first day, and again, most regular people don't hound others for proof on claims like this, even the ridiculous claims. (It doesn't make sense for the class to be so enthralled by her stories, but I would just chalk that up to them being nice to the new kid. The show does get kind of ridiculous with how much the class trusts her later on though.)

Lila could've absolutely caught that napkin on instinct. It would've hurt, but she wouldn't be thinking about her injury because that's how instincts work. Lila actually almost drew unnecessary attention to herself by making up that "explanation" on the spot, as protecting herself with her injured wrist needed no defending in the first place.

The only reason Marinette knew about Lila's lies to Adrien is because she stalked the two of them, which Alya and Nino are rightfully distrustful of. (It's still completely stupid for them to ignore her story entirely though. That's potential evidence of Lila lying to someone. At the very least, they should've verified the story with Adrien. But they just completely blew it off, and that point is never brought up again.)

From the class' perspective, Marinette complained about accommodations made for the new girl's disability because she wasn't allowed to sit close to her crush anymore, demanded hard evidence of the new girl's claims despite having some ridiculous celebrity stories herself, threw a napkin at her, potentially making her wrist injury even worse when she protected herself out of pure instinct, and then stormed off when that didn't work out in her favor.

I don't like this episode, not because of the way the class was acting, but because they took the girl who is supposed to be the smartest character in the show, and had her make probably the worst possible decision in every single situation. There are fatal flaws that cause characters to make understandable mistakes, and then there are characters just ignoring the obvious right answers because that would make far too cohesive of a plot, I guess.

They could've literally had some Spy vs Spy esque shenanigans between Lila and Marinette where neither can openly admit what they both know the other knows and have to skirt around social barriers in order to make the other look bad while saving face themselves. That would not only write itself, but would make more sense given their respective characterizations and would allow for much more interesting drama and character dynamics across multiple seasons.

[azu1as]

HI TINN ITS ME PITTY 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

i was wondering if youre still open for prompts… and if u are can you write about pbss somehow tranported to current mount hua, and everyone is confused af and just watches pbss and divine dragon interact (and maybe argue) with each other

PITTY HELLO ♥✨♥✨♥ yes i'm always open to prompts !!! im literally rotating rotmhs in my head 24/7

this first half was actually born from another prompt by mei on discord but I want to build on it, so dumping it here 👍 HAHAHA

»—————————–✄

The Plum Blossom Sword Saint lets out a ragged breath, his vision rapidly fading. His sword falls from his hand and soon after his body follows.

"...Mount Hua..." he mumbles, aware that the only thing left that awaited him was the cold claim of death.

He dies. And in the next second, he blinks up to a clear sky, the dead bodies that surrounded him gone.

%%%

Dawn had barely broken when an incessant banging against Mount Hua's gates and shouting started and broke the tranquil silence, rousing several disciples.

"OPEN UP!" Someone barks out from the other side. "Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Open this gate right now!!"

Un Am frowns at the lack of manners and respect being shown by the source of the shouting. He reaches the gate and pulls it open. It takes Un Am a bit of effort to ensure that his voice sounded cordial, "Hello, we aren't accepting any visitors this ear—"

Un Am cuts himself off as he takes note of the state of the man in front of him. The man's robes and face were crusted with dried blood despite a lack of any visible injury. That is, if one ignore his lack of an arm.

It still didn't explain the amount of blood he had on his body that was free from any wounds and visible scars.

The man's eyes were bloodshot and trembling. Un Am, even from afar, could tell that there was something deeply wrong with this man. He seemed unconscious of the way he emanated a manic aura; there was a charged sort of energy surrounded him that made an instinctive part of Un Am grip his sword handle in response.

The most notable and unexplainable part of the man, however, was the blood-stained plum blossom embroidered on his chest.

"Who...?" Un Am finds himself unable to react to the man's speed and freezes in place as the man grabs him by the lapels of his robe. He pulls Un Am towards himself and grits out,

"What. Happened. To. My Sect."

%%%

Baek Cheon was quickly ushered into the Sect Leader's residence the moment he returned with a few others from their last excursion to Xi'an.

"What's going on?" He asks.

Elder Un Geom, for a lack of a better word, looked harried. His face twists into a grimace. "It's a bit complicated..."

Baek Cheon doesn't know how he should feel about that response.

Surely, it couldn't be too terrible. After all, their sect was still standing and they did leave Chung Myung behind to stay on Mount Hua as he and the other chosen second-class disciples only had to deliver some goods and tokens to their subsect. Their youngest wouldn't let anything dangerous happen on his watch.

Baek Cheon tries to probe more information. "Before you pulled me away, Baek Sang mentioned something about a guest...?"

"We aren't quite sure of the specifics either, I'm afraid. But the man claims to be one of our ancestors from over a hundred years ago."

"An ancestor? Was he able to verify the claims?"

Un Geom nods. "I've never seen someone weild our plum blossom technique with as much power as he did."

If that was the case, then maybe their supposed ancestor could help them develop and improve their sword techniques even further by teaching them more about the skills that have been lost through time.

"Isn't that a good thing then?"

"It should be, but Chung Myung..."

Ah. Hearing those last three trailing words did not promise anything good.

When they finally opened the door to the Sect Leader's residence, they were greeted to the sight of a soulless Hyun Jong slumped against the wall, a freaked-out Yoon Jong who seemed to be torn between jumping into the fray and throwing himself out the window, and—

"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BEAT UP OUR ANCESTOR, YOU BRAT?!"

Their ancestor and Chung Myung pause in their positions as they both turned eerily similar pink gazes towards the two new entrants.

Chung Myung had the end of their ancestor's ponytail pulled towards him and scrunched up in his fists. His knee pressed against the older man's chest and neck while his jaw was unhinged as he was clearly attempting to bite the man's single arm.

Their ancestor in turn had his one hand closed around half of Chung Myung's face, trying to push him away. His legs were wrapped around Chung Myung's lower half in an inescapable hold and he seemed to have been gearing up for a headbutt before Baek Cheon and Un Geom interrupted them.

"You want me to call this brat my ancestor?!" Chung Myung shouts out as he renewed his attempts to bite the man by roughly grabbing onto the base of his ponytail.

"I'm one hundred years older than you!" Their ancestor grits out as he unashamedly bites Chung Myung's arm. "You disrespectful descendant! Back in my time—"

"'Back in my time', my ass!"

"You...!"

Off to the side, their current sect leader lets out a pitiful moan of mental pain. Baek Cheon would comfort him if he didn't feel the same amount of psychic damage as he watches his youngest sajil and ancestor continue their childish scuffle, rolling on the floor and uncaringly biting into each other like they were both five-year olds.

Later on, after tempers have cooled and everyone (read: Chung Myung and their ancestor) had managed to settle down into a tenuous truce, Hyun Jong turns a tired, but respectful nod towards the bruised man, "May we know this ancestor's identity?"

"Hm?" Said man absently rubs against the embroidered plum blossom on his new uniform. "Ah, I supposed you would know me as the Plum Blossom Sword Saint."

They would have expressed their shock and surpise, but they get easily distracted by Chung Myung's mocking scoff as he rolls his eyes in response.

[sorio99]

Thinking about H.Bomberguy’s Roblox_oof.mp3, and I can’t help but imagine the real backstory for how might have all happened to him.

He’s looking online one day in 2020, 2021, and sees an news article about how the Oof sound effect originated from Messiah.

He writes it down as a possible video idea, but puts it on the back burner so he can cover more important topics, like how Anti-vaxxers are destroying the world or how Deus Ex: Human Revolution is mid.

Finally, in late 2022, he decides to take a break from his longer, months-of-research deep dives, and picks the Oof story to make a short video about.

When he gets to the point of talking about how Tommy owns the sound effect, he writes up a biography section of the video, talking about a lot of Tommy’s past accomplishments, and sets aside the Amico disaster for its own section, since it’s fairly well documented and there’s overlap with the discovery of the Oof sound effect.

While working on the main bulk of the episode, he notices the discrepancy of who actually MADE the sound effect, and looks into it further, only to realize Tommy’s been pretty shady about all of it.

He begins double checking Tommy’s biography and credits, since he wants to see if there’s any precedent for Tommy personally working on Sound Effects.

While doing so, he sees the Sonic claim again, and immediately realizes “Wait, there’s no possible way that’s right”, because even someone who doesn’t know two things about Sonic could figure out that Tommy wasn’t the first American to work on it, and he begins checking ALL of Tommy’s claims against more verifiable sources.

Five simple facts later, and it’s blatantly obvious Tommy Tallarico is a pathological liar who was once taken to court for lying so much.

And the rest is history.

[beforeastorm]

We used to be a proper fandom (not really)

I'm not going to link or reference directly, because the claims have not been verified to any reasonable degree, but I have watched 911blr descend into... something... over the last couple of days because of a situation(s) involving truly horrendous fics, homicide-this-character accounts, and some pretty intense accusations about who (both specifically and as a group) is culpable for those behaviors. And I have some thoughts.

(Under the cut, because I ramble).

Desensitization and Escalation: The fics/account/posts/tweets didn't happen in a vacuum. They're, unfortunately, a natural evolution of what's been happening for months (before anyone ats me, on both/either side). It starts small: I hate so and so, I hate so and so's fans; so and so is the worst, so and so's fans are the worst. People become desensitized to it and then you're primed to escalate. THIS IS CLASSIC SOCIAL CONDITIONING. From I hate them, to someone should enact violence on them, to they deserve that violence, to I hope they die, to they have to die, etc.

I literally saw a tweet that stated something along the lines of "RT if you think we shouldn't consider (ship stans) humans". I'm sorry why are we questioning folk's humanity? About a television ship? The tweet did very well. Tons of likes and RTs. Anytime someone called them out for it, they were told to lighten up and learn how to take a joke. That it wasn't that serious. Well, here we are, a couple months later, and shit has gotten pretty serious now, eh?

And the longer in-groups permit this behavior, at any level, the more the cycle continues. And yes, it does need to be in-groups holding their own to account. And that's not always calling them out - especially if they're not in your circle. And not that you shouldn't call out behavior from the other side, but also - let's sweep our own kitchens before we call someone else's house a mess.

And, to be frank: both houses are messy so don't even.

And let me clarify by what I mean when I say holding people accountable. Because Tim Minear, to my knowledge, has not made any of us 9-1-1 fandom police, nor appointed a fandom inquisitorial squad. So you don't have to proverbially yell at someone to hold them accountable, though if you think they're open to a dialogue - then go for it. You can also choose not to engage/reblog/like/repost bad content; you can unfollow them, even if they make really cool art or write otherwise awesome fics or have really insightful takes 95% of the time. You can make a counterclaim or disavow a bad take; if it's someone in your circle by all means have a developmental conversation. The (ship) fandom would never! Yes they would. So would (other ship) fandom, and even (third ship) fandom and I've actually never met a toxic Bathena fan so go off kings (/gn) but there's probably one out there somewhere. Liking a ship isn't a vaccine to toxicity. Toxic, damaged people exist everywhere. They've existed since the dawn of time. I don't want to accuse anyone of being naive, but really? All this line of thinking does is create blind spots where we allow bad actors room and space to fester. We can, and should state that there's no space for this in the (ship) fandom, and anyone behaving in such a manner will face appropriate social sanctioning, up to and including ostracization. But to just flatly deny the possibility that someone on 'our side' might be bad is irresponsible.

The remedy is suffocation, not to ignore it: I get that you don't want to, to use fire metaphors because it's 9-1-1 after all, feed the flames by engaging with bad actors and giving them attention. Unfortunately, when you ignore a fire, it can spread unchecked.

Suffocate that motherfucker (metaphorically) and grab the burn kits. Starve them out. Unfollow, block - warn your friends - offer care to any affected. If it breaks ToS - report it. YOU SHOULD RESPOND, but you can choose to respond in ways that don't give bad actors the attention they may be craving.

This act was perpetuated by (ship) stans! I feel like I'm in an episode of Scooby Doo. It's not bad (ship) fans, it's (anti-that-ship) fans PRETENDING to be (ship) fans to make them look bad and sow chaos? RIP OFF THE MASK! Was it Agatha all along?

I do believe that happens. I also believe that not every single take that makes your preferred ship/fandom look bad is from a double agent. All pure, immediate, unequivocal denial and accusation does is provide cover and perpetuate the rot in that ship space. Before we immediately accuse the other side, we should show up with some goddamn receipts. (I have yet to see receipts).

And listen, people don't need to like each other, or even agree, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO OPEN AO3 WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT STUMBLING ACROSS UNTAGGED CSA, ESPECIALLY FOR MY HOMIES WHO ARE SURVIVORS, BECAUSE SOME JABRONI WENT "SHIP WARS RAH RAH!" AND DECIDED THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA.

At the end of the day - fandom should be joyful. If your entire experience has been reduced to bashing another ship, bashing characters, starting rumors about other fans, complaining about other fans/ships/characters, impersonating fans of ships you're against, or infiltrating 'enemy territory' like you're some kind of spy and not some overworked, underpaid 21st century serf trying to exist under the crushing, existential weight of our capitalist hellscape whose main form of escaping said hellscape is our weewoo show blorbos? Be so for real right now. It's giving Regina George. Why are you so obsessed with them? Choose to engage with joy (or alternatively, choose to engage in really sad fics if you need a good cry because that is fair and also valid).

Stormy out ✌️

[xxstarlight-lifexx]

Some quotes I have from people speaking out against KOSA, please reblog, tag people, cross-post on other platforms, and share with everyone you can, all quotes are fair use <3

“This law is a scam, created with the express purpose of persecuting LGBTQ+ people and silencing victims of abuse. That is the only possible outcome of these kinds of bills.

Oppose them on principle. Be skeptical whenever they are even brought-up.

This isn’t about safety—it is a takeover of THE major avenue to disseminate information in the modern world. It is more than censorship, it defines the avenues that thought may even take.

It will lead to identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me getting more of people’s private data and guaranteed, exclusive government contracts for surveillance and data collection, in violation of the spirit of the 4th Amendment, if not the letter.

It is also an absolute certainty that conservatives in positions of authority will use this program to persecute LGBTQ+ people, with the force of the State, under the guise of protecting children from pornography and "grooming". It has been an explicit misdirection tactic the right has invented to poison debate on trans rights issues and the (unconnected) growing evidence of sexual impropriety among the powerful, particularly conservatives.

Furthermore, I and most others will not abide by this law, if it is passed, and will take whatever actions necessary to safeguard our personal information via VPN, encryption, onion networking, etc., regardless of their permissibility.”

“This is a violation of basic rights on the Internet. Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? Or are we just gonna ignore a literal Amendment in favor of “protecting the American children" while many of those children are the ones against this??”

“having full privacy on the internet may have saved my life growing up. don’t take away kid’s privacy, there’s already perfectly reasonable ways for parents to monitor kids.”

“I think that people have a right to privacy online, especially children. This doesn't seem like a bill that would actually protect children from anything, it would just make important resources more difficult to access, increase censorship online, and increase surveillance, all of which I oppose.”

“There are three things you never give out on the internet for your safety. 1) Name, 2) Face, and 3) Home. This bill guarantees that all three will be easily available to those who wish to hurt the children this bill falsely claims to protect. If you actually care about children, stop this bill. Listen to what those of us that actually use the internet are telling you. Children and adults deserve a private, anonymous space to be.”

“i'm a queer teen and i know full well the importance online spaces have in supporting lgbtq+ youth, especially ones who don't have supportive environments in person. censorship doesn't actually erase the information, it just makes it harder to access.”

“I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk.

KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources.

KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity.

There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data.

KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.”

“Censorship doesn't keep kids safe. Censorship does not save abused children. Censorship does not save queer children. Censorship will not save any of us. Freedom for us all. Freedom for the internet. This shit cannot stand.”

“This bill is a massive overreach on civil liberties and freedom of speech in particular. It should not be within the government's purview to determine what content is acceptable, no matter which party is in power.”

“As we all know, the major threats to American children today are books, bathrooms, and the Internet.

Not getting shot in their own schools or attacked on their own streets.

Since graduating from the public school system in 2007, I haven't seen anything from elected officials to contradict this.”

“KOSA is a censorship bill in sheep’s clothing. It would erode Americans’ rights to privacy, especially that of vulnerable and marginalized Americans, and gather information about the whereabouts and identities of the children it play-acts at “protecting”.”

“This is a ridiculous law

KOSA is a giant bill that is pretending to be about child safety, but is actually overreaching government censorship. It is a violation of free speech and the 1st amendment.

This bill would require that internet users upload their government ID to access any site, and state attorney generals could sue to remove any site that contains content deemed "harmful" to children. The government will be able to censor ANYTHING - such as abortion info, LGBTQ+ resources, and any content relating to protesting or organizing. They will also be able to ID you if you search for any of these topics. This is the opposite of a free internet!”

“The law is pretty much just a trojan horse for censorship.”

“frankly i dont want to be put on a list the gov has of every queer person who opposes their anti-lgbt laws”

“I care about actually helping people instead of making a bill that is going to kill any ability for anyone to get help. That is going to be used to police anyone who disagrees with the absolute mess everything is right now. The conservative morals don’t allow for anyone not white, cuz, straight, or male; and I won’t have that enforced on the fucking public forum.”

[dianamoth]

Project Copy-Knight

Hi tumblr,

I woke up this morning to a new AO3 comment on my most liked Naruto fic, but this comment was unlike any other I ever got before. It will interest fanfic writers around, especially anime fanfic, so allow me to share it:

Hello, Unfortunately, your work may have been stolen by content farms to create YouTube videos here: (link removed by dianamoth) If you have granted permission for this uploader, you can safely ignore this comment. If not, you should report these videos here: DMCA Complaint Form. You should re-confirm the video contents before you file the report. Note that only the original creator for this work can submit a complaint. When filing the complaint, do not select the "Scheduled: Send a 7-day notice" option, or they won't get a copyright strike from you. We recommend that you do not negotiate with the channel before-hand. Remember to include a link to your work in the 'Title' section of the complaint form. Channels like this have stolen many more works from other writers as well, so your efforts in reporting this channel will also help other writers. See full list of stolen works here: Google sheets Your authorship was identified a while ago by an automated detector under Project Copy-Knight, but for anti-spam reasons we could not inform you until we have manually confirmed each case. If you would like us to notify you as soon as possible, please include this text in your profile page to grant us permission. To prevent a build-up of our notification comments on inactive accounts, we will only send you a maximum of 3 messages before you grant us permission. This is message 1 out of 3. This message was sent automatically, but your case was manually confirmed, and replies to this comment are monitored. If you need additional guidance on how to take the video down, just reply to this comment. To learn more about what we do, please read this article or join our Discord server. From Project Copy-Knight, EsquireBot

I did not give consent for my fic to be used on youtube, ofc.

I was skeptical at first (for context, I write OC Naruto fanfics, who the hell would be interested in that on youtube, I thought?), but this is a well-crafted message with all the ways to verify this claim, so verified it I did!

And hello and behold, this is all true! I'm Amazed. This Project Copy-Knight is quite impressive, it seems well organized and everything, so I thought I would share the word about their existence so that people are aware that this is a problem that exists, that someone is working on it, that it's not spam, and how you can participate, etc... I recommend checking the article they mentioned and the Discord server if you have time to help.

Also, for those who might be in the same case as I and want to report a youtube video (because obviously I'm going to, can you believe this? Just read further to see what a mess it is), let it be known that the link above only works if you have a channel. If not, you have to send your complaint to copyright@youtube.com

Now, if you're interested in seeing what a MessTM this is, continue reading about this video that stole my work.

Guys, this is the presentation of the video:

The title (and the pictures) has absolutely NO link whatsoever to the plot of my fic, to be clear.

The pictures inside of the slideshow are about DragonBall Z! XD

But yes, it is indeed a generated "podfic" of my OC fic (but only part of it? it cuts in the middle of a scene at around half of the story)!

When you click on the description of the video, there is a link that actually contains a list of links on fanfiction.net. So they actually didn't steal it from AO3 but ff.net. Writers from ff.net, be aware!

The video has 1,4k views and 37 likes in 2 months. What the heck.

But the comments, guys!

I find this frankly hilarious. I mean, there is so much confusion here. Obviously the basic Naruto fans that would hate on (female) OCs are expected, but someone listened to it long enough to realize it was not the complete story. Respect to them.

Can you believe that with such a mess this channel has 5,37k subscribers? Please people, have some self-respect.

[throwaway-yandere]

hello, hello! i wanted to drop by to say that your kaveh + dr ratio fic was amazing. i only finished reading it just now, so excuse me if i sound like i consumed excessive sugar but anyway— i adore the way you played around with the concept of "expy"!! at the start of the fic, i already know that something was gonna tie both ratio and kaveh together (although i don't think we were made aware of ratio's intentions at first besides hints here and there??) but man, reading it till the end filled me with catharsis. it felt so good, everything was so neatly tied and weaved together. you did such a marvelous job. also, one of my favorite parts about the fic were the flashbacks veritas had about him and his (y/n). i think those were crucial in giving us a solidified view about the relationship between them and not to mention, the little 'lie' he did. ANDDD OH OH i loved the way you wrote kaveh's dialogue when he first saw his delam awake. something about how he stuttered/mumbled (?) in such relief made me feel like i could feel his relief myself. this may be because you introduced his despair over our loss so well somewhere in the beginning, so thank you for that!!! or really, thank you for writing this delicious fic in general.

anywho, i think i've said far too much on here but i just had to— wishing you a good day/evening! AND SORRY FOR THE RAMBLE.

[From this Yandere!Kaveh &/vs Yandere!Dr. Ratio x Reader]

Kaveh: What lie were they talking about?

Veritas: Nothing. Do not mind them.

Kaveh: If it's pertaining to (Y/n), I find that request difficult to follow.

[Author's notes utc]

Aight my turn to speak now HAJDJAIDIIW— DW DW I LOVE IT A LOT WHEN PEOPLE RAMBLE ABT MY FICS AAAHHHHHH TY TY TY!!!!!

Yeah it was meant not to be explicitly stated in the beginning what Ratio was up to (≡^∇^≡)!!! I just thought it'd be a nice "plot twist" when it's revealed Veritas also has a (Y/n) [although it's prolly obvs it was leading up to that haha].

His lie is actually pretty solid too. No one can deny or verify those claims. Not when he did leave those notes on (Y/n)'s computer [those quick little "Good morning, I love you. — R." messages he put in by hacking lol]. Not when he can say they were hiding their relationship. Doesn't help that his (L/n)'s colleagues can provide testimonies that they did use to be close enough to exchange jackets.

If Kaveh found out it's a lie there's no way in hell he'd allow Veritas to share you.

Speaking of our boy, Kaveh's parts are fun to write too. He nearly made me make the fic more sadder but my goal for these next fics is to be more lighthearted with a "willing"/compliant darling 😭😭😭 I love our boy very much. He doesn't have any will to go on but now he has something to get excited about and wake up for with you being here.

Aight I'll shut up now HAJSJAIISOQKA Ty ty ty (≧∇≦)/!!!!!

[vickyvicarious]

"it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose."

The above passage is from May 16 after the vampire women tried to drink his blood, as he realized. Today on May 19 Jonathan writes three letters to be sent home (to Mr Hawkins) on various days of June, the final one being for June 29, the end of his life.

The thing I expected was for Jonathan to wonder why he's being kept alive after today/May 19th. Dracula is, as Jonathan said, his safety "whilst I can serve his purpose". But what is his purpose? Dracula had all his real estate papers signed on the 12th (when he ordered Jonathan to stay extra and that he'll take no refusal). He is actually fluent in English. Now, a steady stream of letters will be sent to Exeter throughout June, pretending that Jonathan's returning home.

Dracula can just kill him now, or just give him to the vampire women. No one would know. I'm sure he wants Jonathan first, claiming him and claiming the lion's share, but not now when he has months yet to leave. Then once, as Dracula said, he's "done with him" maybe he'll leave the rest to the other vampires.

But I wonder why Jonathan isn't wondering why he's being kept alive until the end of June. I suppose a Doylist reason is to not give the possible answer away yet, Watsonian being him fearing to speculate without answers?

Yeah, I've wondered this myself in the past. I think for me it comes down to a combination of several factors, since there really is no single quote that points to a specific reason Jonathan seems so convinced.

Before I get into those, I do want to mention that it is possible there is still some business to be done. It's a popular interpretation that they finish the last of that all on May 12, and it does make sense with the timeline. I personally believe it. But technically, I don't think Jonathan ever mentions them signing the final papers. He says he answers all of Dracula's questions, but that could be just referring to the ones in that conversation: "When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:—" ...and then Dracula brings up him staying. Again, the interpretation that they finish all their work in that conversation is totally valid/likely. But if someone really wanted to argue that there is still some amount of actual legal work to be done, I don't believe canon says anything outright to the contrary.

That's not really my take though. Here are the reasons I think Jonathan believes he will survive until the end of June, in no particular order:

What Dracula said on May 16. He heard the Count drive the other vampires back with the words:

"Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done."

Now, in the moment, Dracula's line about having work to do seems most likely to be a fib just to get them to go. 'I'm busy, scram,' essentially. But he is very clear that he isn't done with Jonathan yet. (Though the fib about being busy itself could suggest that he might keep Jonathan alive and away from them longer than he himself needed/wanted to, just as a taunt/power play against these vampire ladies. But that's less relevant since he clearly does seem to want him still.) As you point out, Jonathan notes it himself, that he will be able to look to Dracula for safety so long as he serves his purpose. The fact that Dracula comes back within a couple of days to get him to write these specifically dated letters I think suggests to him that he is likely to stand at least a chance of serving that purpose until those dates. At least, it seems that way given...

Jonathan knows Dracula by now. He can probably tell just how much Dracula really enjoys him, and that said enjoyment is in many ways what's keeping him alive. Probably at least to some degree in a sense of enjoying his company, and that is somewhat relevant since he can play on that to stay interesting even when he's not outright useful/needed. But also, importantly, Dracula's particular brand of sadism comes into play here. He loves his mind games and multilayered conversations. He's been making jokes about his own undead/supernatural status basically as long as Jonathan has known him. He enjoys manipulating Jonathan. He enjoys giving him orders and warnings and then watching to see if he will obey or not. Jonathan has disobeyed significantly twice already, by trying to get into all the locked rooms and by sleeping outside of his room. And while he was discovering locked doors early on just while going about his business, he made no move nor seemed to have any particular designs/likelihood to sleep outside his room until Dracula brought it up first. Maybe you could argue that he's been looking more tired/likely to nap about as this nocturnal existence becomes more telling on him, but still there was no real build-up at all to the warning. Which is just one of the many reasons I read it as intentional bait.

So, knowing how Dracula likes to throw out these sorts of hints, I think it reasonable for Jonathan to think he will live that long. It would be just like him to use these letters to subtly tell Jonathan: no one will know where to look for you when you go missing, I could kill you long before with no consequences, but why would I if you play along and please me? ...so play. along.

There's also the fact that Jonathan may know when Dracula plans to leave. Now I certainly don't think he knows his exact itinerary or anything. Probably not even the date he expects to go, and just how closely it lines up with Jonathan's final false letter. But it seems entirely reasonable to me for the topic to have come up during all their work talk. There's a very good chance Jonathan knows that Dracula is planning on leaving for England in a month or two, or even just "around midsummer", etc. And if he does, I think he could add that in with the previous two points I mentioned to reach the conclusion that Dracula intends to keep him around until about when he himself is going to leave. (With the caveat, always, that Jonathan must make himself interesting/nonthreatening enough that he doesn't get bored before then.)

But finally, all those things aside... Jonathan has a tendency to fixate on things. In doing so he can miss other possibilities. And I think the encounter with the vampire ladies served to, somewhat despite himself, dismiss a lot of his fear of immediate danger from Dracula himself. He's aware that he is playing a long game under threat of being thrown the vampire ladies early, and kind of gets blinders to the fact that Dracula himself might physically harm him before then. This really reaches its height near the end of his stay with his seeming obliviousness to the possibility of Dracula biting him even when the guy outright says the "tonight is mine" line. And while I think he does get bitten and just doesn't remember it because that's often what can happen when a vampire entrances/bites you, his not recognizing the possibility beforehand is something that has made several people cry censorship (on a Watsonian level from Jonathan or Mina, and on a Doylist level from Stoker because he knew it wouldn't be accepted). But I think it can be attributed to a combination of Jonathan getting fixated on the ultimate threat (the women) and also on some level recognizing that if Dracula was going to give him to them after he was through, then he'd likely survive whatever Dracula planned for him anyway, so it wasn't as necessary to focus on. (Some of his single-mindedness definitely reads as more calculated at times.)

All this to say, Jonathan may just be overlooking the possibility that Dracula isn't planning to keep him around that long. That or he may be aware of the idea but is dismissing it without mention because it's totally unhelpful to dwell on. He has to approach the situation the same way regardless, fawning to please Dracula while looking for a chance at some other way out. He's stalling for time no matter what, so why not assume he has the most time it seems reasonable to hope for, at least in order to keep himself from completely breaking down and giving up before then. For some semblance of morale if nothing else. He's definitely not going to live past then, but maybe, maybe, until then.

[taylor-on-your-dash]

SO, WHO IS THE SONG MINE ABOUT?

A couple of years ago I read this comment on r/Taylor Swift about Taylor dating a non famous guy who attended Belmont University.

I started college in Nashville in 2010, and the semester before I started, it was well known that Taylor was seeing a guy who lived on campus. It never made headlines because he wasn’t a celebrity like her other relationships. I have seen lots of random explanations for “Mine,” but many students at the university always assumed it was about this guy because the timeline fit.

At the time, I didn't think much of it. I thought that it could've been possible but still, the theory of Mine being about Cory Monteith made more sense to me.

While I was writing the Speak Now Timeline, one of the most important interviews was the Billboard one:

"Mine" was a turning point in the album’s development. It wasn’t until early 2010 when the album truly began to coalesce. Swift presented "Mine" to Borchetta in his office, just a few doors down the hall from the leather couch in the lobby. "We probably played that song four or five times," Borchetta recalls. "I’m jumping around playing air guitar, she’s singing the song back to me, and it was just one of those crazy, fun, Taylor teen-age moments." And then it got serious. "I said, ‘Keep going,’ " Borchetta says. "She kind of looked at me like, ‘You’re challenging me.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. You’ve found true north here. Keep going.’ " It was some time in the period after that challenge — between February and June — that Swift wrote “Innocent,” her response to the Kanye West incident.

That settled it then, no? Mine was written in late February, after Taylor had returned from Tokyo.

My certainties crumbled a few weeks ago, when @1989worldtour sent me an interview where Taylor says that she wrote Mine on the road, specifically in Texas.

Back To December was written in New York City, The Story Of Us was in Nashville, I wrote Mine somewhere on the road, I think in Texas, actually. (X)

Taylor was in Texas on March 10th (in Austin), March 11th (Dallas), and March 12th (Corpus Christi) for the Fearless Tour. At first, this didn't make any sense to me: Taylor had said that she wrote Mine in February! Then again, she often misremembers dates. I had shelved this date in my mind until I randomly found this comment on r/Fauxmoi while I was researching Starlight and the Kennedy craze Taylor went through.

She dated a guy from Belmont I think because a family friend went there and was friends with him and was there the night they met! “By the water” in Mine is apparently about Mozarts - a coffee shop in Austin on the water where they went on a date. I have no way to verify this because it didn’t happen to me but the family friend had pics with Taylor and stuff because of this guy she was friends with who dated Taylor. This might be the only piece of celeb gossip I’ve ever known haha.

Reply: This is true! He's now married with kids and not at all famous.

The return of the Belmont guy! We have two other sources claiming that she dated a non-famous person who attended Belmont. The mention of Texas cemented the fact that there might be a kernel of truth in this theory. At this point, I took this rumor seriously and chose to investigate further. the next question was, if Belmont is in Nashville and the Mozart bar is in Texas, didn't the guy miss a lot of classes? The answer is... no. If you look at the Belmont Academic Calendar, guess when Spring Break was? From March 8th to March 15th! So even if the guy was in college, he didn't miss any classes. There's was plenty of time for him to fly to Texas, attend the show, going on a date at the Mozart bar and then fly back to Nashville.

There's another problem though: according to the Billboard interview, Taylor brought Mine to Scott Borchetta in late February. We don't actually have a direct quote from Taylor or Borchetta saying that it was February. It could be Taylor or Scott misremembering, It could be the journalist inferring (it has happened before, for example on this Rolling Stone article from 2009, where the author said that Love Story and White Horse were for the same person, for some weird reason). After all, late February and early March aren't that far away. Nathan Chapman, the producer of the song, said that they worked on Mine on and off for 4 months. They finished it on July 21st, so March 10th still tracks.

Now, let's look at the actual bar. on the left, we have a screenshot from the Music Video, while on the right, a picture of the Mozart Bar. they look very similar to me, but I admit that I've never been to the USA, so maybe coffee shops all look the same?

Fun fact: The Mozart bar confirmed that she has been there in May 2013, after the Red Tour show.

Conclusions: Honestly, I believe those people on Reddit, but I realise that the sources are very unstable. What makes me believe it though, is the obscure mention of Mine being written in Texas, and the person on Reddit revealing that they had a date at a bar that casually is by the water. It fits perfectly. I don't have any more to say for now, but it's possible that I'll write a post of how Mine is one of the first post John Mayer song and how that relationship affected the themes of her songwriting.

P.S.: I would advise not contacting these people on Reddit. it's obvious that they're friends with him/know him and they wouldn't say anything to help identifying him. plus, it's not our place to gather information about a person that wants anonymity. it's not cool to doxx random people.

[walks-the-ages]

Jasmine Sherman (they/them) has their official campaign website claiming that they have Ballot Access in 48 states.

Tiktok user @ arrdubs has done multiple deep dives into how Jasmine Sherman's claims are false, and why the claims of 48 states cannot be verified on any official state websites they claim to have Ballot Access in.

This is their shorter, original video, which the above longer one is a sequel to, and if you look in the comments of this video, you'll see people from Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee, and more who have confirmed Jasmine Sherman is not on their state's ballot despite the claims to the contrary on the official campaign website:

https://www.tiktok.com/@arrrdubs/video/7376416978921131306?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc I literally less than 24 hours ago heard about this candidate and wanted to vote for them based on the surface-level information I'd heard about them, but it was pointed out to me that the "48 state ballot access" claim could not be verified, it only took a few hours to find swathes of websites that refute the claims on their official website, including the two different sites that Jasmine Sherman's own website recommends.

Jasmine Sherman's website, as of July 29th 2024, explicitly states for all states except Alaska and Georgia:

Jasmine is on the ballot under the Unicorn Party.

On the applicable states that allow write-ins, there's this little note:

Write-ins are also allowed for all candidates, so you can write in Jasmine's name if you don't see them on the ballot.

This is, in my mind, a planned cop out, for when Election Day rolls around and inevitably, thousands of people discover the candidate who's been promising them they're on their state's ballots for months actually isn't.

So now, "Unicorn Party". if you try to find any official state websites (or otherwise) with "Unicorn Party" on the Ballot, what do you find?

Zip. Zilch. Nothing.

The "Unicorn Party" is not on the ballot for any of the 50 states.

Every single Third-Party Ballot Access tracker out there shows all the other popular Third Party candidates, including ones I've never heard of til now..... except for the candidate who claims to have 48 states with ballot access?

Jasmine Sherman, officially, is literally still part of the Green Party when it comes to Ballot Access in the states -- but they claim to have more than double the amount of Ballot Access that Dr. Jill Stein has??

If you click on their big bold Palestine, Congo, and Sudan flags on their home page, are you expecting to go to a piece written by the candidate who's website we're on where they're running for President?

Well, instead of anything that makes sense like that, Jasmine Sherman's website just links to random news articles that don't even mention Jasmine Sherman in any capacity??

This is what comes up when you click on their "stance on Palestine":

Here's their "stance on Congo"

and here's their "stance on Sudan":

Literally none of the above were written by or affiliated with Jasmine Sherman in any way shape or form.

plain text: Literally none of the above were written by or affiliated with Jasmine Sherman in any way shape or form.

The link for Sudan is from May 2023 and is a single paragraph that says

May 14, 2023, 10:00 AM In mid-2019, after the ouster of Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, political analysts hoped that Washington might be able to help Sudan chart a path to democracy. That hope was short-lived. In late 2021, Sudan’s generals staged a coup, and after 18 months of controversial U.S. policies attempting to revive the country’s democratic transition, armed conflict erupted again in Khartoum last month.

That's it. That's the official link for "Jasmine Sherman's Stance on a Free Congo".

The link for Palestine is just an overview of what kinds of weapons had been sent to Israel as of February 2024, with an off-hand comment about (an unnamed) Aaron Bushnell.

It literally looks like for the Official Jasmine Sherman Campaign Website , they just did a quick google search in the first few months of 2024 and pasted whatever random article sounded promising, and literally have not given any actual writing by themselves on their official campaign website.

And this is someone who is running for President of the United States, who is literally copying and pasting random news articles onto some flags hoping no one will click on them to seem legitimate instead of actually writing out clear and concise statements on their own website??

Don't forget, they're so modern and quirky and in-touch with young people!

That's why they want, instead of banning guns from being owned by every other random person in the USA, the country with the highest rate of mass shootings in the world, that instead, every single child in the United States should learn how to handle and aim a gun from before Kindergarten age upward and make it as easy to own a gun as getting your driver's license:

They also claim they want to Abolish the Police, but they also support the Death Penalty, specifically and explicitly by Firing Squad or Morphine Overdose:

They've got a footnote above this policy, saying how they've "evolved" passed this........ but they haven't actually updated their policy to reflect what that "evolution" has turn into. Do they want to Abolish The Death Penalty now? Do they support different methods of executing human beings? Do they accept having more than their stated single year for due process? Who knows!

It's had this footnote about "evolution" since at least May 2nd 2024, because that's as far back as the Wayback Machine goes.

They've also had literally zero writing on their "policy" for Landback, because it's been "currently being drafted" since April 2024 at least. Not even a basic statement to be had on the policy page, just "being drafted".

If you've been seeing posts about Jasmine Sherman and want to vote for them, read up on all their policies, then check with your local State governments and check to see if they're actually on your Ballot like their website claims.

I've now seen multiple people from multiple states confirm they contacted their respective state offices and Jasmine Sherman is not on their ballot, including in areas that the deadline has already passed.

[themathomhouse]

I haven't seen this posted about here but it's going round Twitter and tiktok, and I'm so beyond angry I can't let it go.

The UK imprint of Simon and Schuster have announced a history of Gaza is forthcoming from writer and academic Dr Anne Irfan. She's a professor at UCL specialising in Palestinian refugees and their treatment under the UNRWA. She's done extensive work and volunteering in refugee camps, advocates for Palestinians in the UK directly to government, works with a number of projects including in asylum applications, and writes articles both in academic journals and in newspapers about Palestine. Whilst studying for her thesis, she was denied entry into Palestine by Israel.

Sounds like a highly qualified person to write a history of Gaza, right?

WRONG!

According to activists on social media - all of whom have comparable work backgrounds and experience I'm sure - it's completely unacceptable for her to write this book!!! Some of which is due to her being a white woman (we'll get to that), and some is due to her husband being a soldier in the IDF and clapping for genocide (we'll get to that too).

The vitriol and backlash has been awful, and I haven't seen many takedowns so under the cut I will dissect the issues here.

1) she's not Palestinian.

This one seems to be true, and I do think that it's important that we allow people from a region to tell their own stories. This isn't the worst criticism, however given the other problems people have I think it's being brought up disengenuously.

She is an expert though, and I am deeply concerned about this progression to an idea that we should only learn about or discuss our own cultures. Palestinian voices not being elevated is a systemic issue, not the fault of one woman who we can at least say possesses the requisite expertise to write a history book.

She's actually already written one book - Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the international refugee system.

Here's a list of recent news articles she's written.

2) she's white.

This one I can't verify. There are claims from people purporting to be former students of hers who say she's Jordanian and has family in Palestine. Certainly her surname is Arabic and she's listed as being fluent in Arabic on her academic profiles, so I'm not willing to assume from the single photograph I've seen that she's white.

We have also seen from the rise in antisemitism recently that whiteness is entirely conditional, and I think in this case it's being thrust upon her to justify saying she has no business writing a book. I think this is trying to get at systemic issues with publishing, but without any of the facts.

Source:

3) her husband is an IDF soldier.

Her partner (not husband as far as I can tell) tweeted out the book announcement. He's a fucking marketing data guy who works for Twitter. He's not in the IDF. He's just Israeli and so probably did national service, but that's an assumption as he lives in London.

Source:

I can't add his LinkedIn or other profiles as they've all been deleted, likely due to this shit. This will have to do.

4) he supports genocide.

No.

He had a take that I don't personally agree with - saying Israel shouldn't agree to a ceasefire until the hostages have been returned - but that is an extremely far cry from any kind of support for genocide. His Twitter has been deleted so I've only seen screenshots, possibly someone made this claim but failed to procure the correct evidence; but that seems extremely unlikely.

Even the original person who tweeted about this has tried to walk it back (not the husband part but some of the other stuff).

There were no receipts by the way, possibly due to a change of heart.

Babe you called it coloniser apologia and attacked her personally as well as her partner, you're kind of the one who made it personal. Feel bad all you want but this is just you being defensive.

What now?

If you are going to make claims about someone supporting genocide or any of this shit, be really fucking sure before you throw a Molotov cocktail into the dumpster fire of this discourse. The publisher, an unrelated book news website, her editor (who's made her account private after being @ed in the comments), and she and her partner (both deleted Twitter) have been inundated with tweets and videos on tiktok yelling about it - most of which has been at best unhelpful, but comes from a place of xenophobia and an entirely misapplied desire to crusade for justice - and I'm being generous calling it that.

Has this helped? Has it? Did posting her university email and calling for people to call her a fascist in her work inbox manifest some Palestinian writers? Has tweeting shit like this helped?

Getting rid of academia is definitely A Good Take and not the step authoritarians take.

I've personally written to the publisher to express my sadness at this whole thing, agreeing that Palestinian voices are extremely important to uplift but also saying that Dr Irfan is clearly more than qualified to write this book. I admire all of the work she has already done spending more than a decade working with Palestinian refugees, and I hope very much that everyone involved is doing okay.

I don't know what else to do. All I can do is once again say that people need to really, properly fact-check before you post. This woman is actually doing the activism. She's an historian, yes; but also does work directly in camps and with the preservation of archives. Her crime seems to me to be that her partner is Israeli, and if that's where we're at then I don't even want to know where we're going.