#especially for a POC queer abuse survivor as their victim???

[strawberryraviegutz]

No Hazbin/Helluva fans didn’t harass a black person off the internet just for having an opinion over a cartoon. There is SO MUCH being left out. Obviously harassment and slurs is never ever ok but the reason why ppl got upset at HR(the black person in question)in the first place was because they were defending a pedophile.(along with associating with a person who literally ships hiccup with toothless, beetle juice x Lydia and incest. I’d rather not mention that person’s name tho cuz i don’t wanna get swarmed.)

HR is an awful person with an extreme parasocial hatred towards Viv, the shows, and fans. They have done so much damage to the hellaverse fandom. Making racist assumptions about the characters that were just completely incorrect,literally encouraging harassment and VIOLENCE towards fans, purposefully starting up drama/controversy, literally threatening and encouraging violence towards Valentino fans over A MUG,

Along with being extremely hypocritical. They claim Viv and the entire fandom is racist yet HR is a lot more racist themselves. They’ve made racist assumptions about the characters that are just flat out incorrect(like I said above), denied Viv’s Salvadoran heritage using the “Latino/Latina isn’t a race” argument, and have called black hellaverse fans/black ppl who didn’t agree with them in general the c slur(or have just said that the black ppl who didnt agree with them weren’t black at all). Their pfp was also a racist depiction of black ppl from a cartoon called Fritz the Cat and while that cartoon is a critique of racism, black ppl being depicted as crows still was kinda weird.

And yeah the c slur is their slur to reclaim but it’s still hella icky to call someone a slur just because they don’t share the same parasocial hatred for a cartoon. Especially if it’s your own ppl. They also claim that ppl who like Valentino romanticize/fetishize abuse and or rapists(even tho most Val fans are rape and abuse survivors themselves. Tho even ppl who aren’t victims should still be allowed to like him because he’s a FICTIONAL villain.) and just shit on ppl who like Val in general meanwhile they were a Stella apologist/defender.

They literally used to have a twitter banner that said something like, “black queers have reclaimed stella”. Stella is abusive towards Stolas and literally bragged about committing marital rape against him at the not divorce party. HR has said that Stolas isn’t a victim at all and that Stella has every right to act the way she does towards him along with denying Stolas’ trauma. HR also “rewrote” Asmodueus/Ozzie in a fic to be ok with rape and sex trafficking because they thought it was unrealistic for the king of Lust to be against rape.

Like I said above they’ve literally encouraged VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT towards us and have block evaded ppl which is violating boundaries. They have spread SO MUCH misinformation about the shows, the creator, the fandom, and the staff behind the shows. We weren’t celebrating them leaving the internet because because they were black nor is it because we think they deserved to be harassed or called slurs. No. We’re celebrating them leaving the because they were just an awful human being.

And I’m tired of you bozos trying to push this narrative. You hellaverse haters claim to care about black and poc ppl but you rlly don’t. You only care about the black ppl who have the same hatred towards us as you.

“B-But the black face Alastor cosplayer!!”

I literally can’t remember the last time a huge chunk of a fandom came together to condemn the racism of other fans.

(Not to mention I saw a few bigger Helluvaverse fan creators say that non black ppl shouldn’t speak over black ppl who were rightfully concerned about Alastor’s voudu symbols when that controversy was going around(which was also started by HR).Even then if you compare the symbols in the show to actual veve you will see that the ones in the show ARE FAKE.)

Pretty much the majority of the fandom condemned that Alastor cosplayer(and or cosplayers cuz I heard there was like 3 more but I’ve only seen that one picture). And instead of comforting the black hellaverse fans who were affected by that, you just used the incident as a tool for your own selfish gain and only comforted the black people who agreed with you.(along with denying Viv’s Salvadoran heritage which is believe it or not..kinda racist.)

“Omg the hellaverse has antiblackness in it!! So much for claiming to be Allies!!”

NEWS FLASH HONEY. ALL FANDOMS HAVE AN ANTI BLACKNESS PROBLEM. WHY ARE YOU SINGLING OUT HELLAVERSE WHEN GESHIN IMPACT AND SO MANY OTHER FANDOMS ARE RIGHT THERE(no hate to all Genshin fans tho. I like the game too despite the company’s shitty practices).

Since yall wanna claim to be “actual allies unlike those filthy hellaverse stans” Where were you when black and or poc hellaverse fans were being harassed and called slurs + being called whitewashed by haters for liking the shows,huh??

Where were you when we were being sent death threats, animal gore videos, and being told to kill ourselves??

WHERE WERE YOU?? WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?? Yeah exactly. Thats what i thought.I’ve literally been called the N word with a hard R and told that one of my comfort characters I selfship with would slaughter me for being a hellaverse fan.

Yall claim to be there for black ppl yet turn a blind eye to us for the cardinal sin of being fans of Viv’s work. Yall werent there for us when we were being treated horribly by haters. Get the fuck off your high horse. You don’t actually care about us. All you guys care about is preaching more hate and vitriol towards the creator, shows, and its fans to try and “own” us.

And don’t even get me started on yall using a hellaverse’s fan’s suicide as more ammunition to spread more hatred towards us, making up fake stories about being gang raped by Hazbin hotel fans, along with physically assaulting hellaverse fans irl and trying to set them on ON FIRE. Yall can take your fake allyship and shove it right up your fucking asses. Cuz we as black/poc hellaverse fans sure as hell don’t need nor want it from you.

[s3rend1ppy]

TW: abuse, child abuse, CSA, grooming, rape, victim blaming

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-

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I've been having a fucking breakdown about this for months, so someone tell me if this is just me having a trauma induced cognitive distortion or if I'm right and this is founded and it's ok for me to be so fucking upset about this.

I don't think as many people care about abuse as much as they think they do. ESPECIALLY not fucking child abuse. I think for most people it comes down to having a power fantasy about getting to "beat up the evil bad guys and serve justice!!!" and that's the extent of their care, violence (which we all know how helpful that always is). Rarely ever do you see people support resources that actually go to helping victims, rarely do you see these people work with victims themself. And I'm not even saying you need to do those two things to be a true advocate against violence, but let's be real and say there are way too many fucking people who refuse to do the bare minimum of just going no contact with friends/family who were outed as abusers. And let's be real when most of those people will go out of their way to invalidate, judge, ostracize, or even be violent towards the victims of their friends/family.

And it's even worse when we talk about child abuse ! Especially among conservatives, who I genuinely believe are incapable of caring about child victims of abuse even if they think they do, every belief every policy they stand by negatively impacts children and perpetrates cycles of child abuse. They literally cannot care about children with the things they advocate for. But let's keep talking about how they talk about grooming and CSA only in the context of using it against Queer/POC. You will never see them talk about these issues outside of being violent towards Queer/POC. Especially not if it happens in their homes, just think about the rampant sexual abuse that happens in conservative spaces or churches that goes unchecked because why ? People don't fucking care.

People only care about abuse because it gives them an excuse to be violent and I'm fucking sick of it. You rarely ever see people care about these issues because they want to help survivors and actually fucking care about the effects of it.

[shinebrightlikeanarwhal]

Okay I was listening to Moral of the Story and it made me think of how some abused people tend to be abused again because even if it’s bad it’s familiar, maybe something like trauma bonding idk

So, imagine Travis making some shitty abusive friends because that's all he knows

How does the gang + Philip reacts seeing him like this on the daily basis? (They're not friends w/ him yet)

why am I JUST NNOW SEEING THIS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

First and foremost;

Philip had no choice.

He did nothing wrong, how was he suppose to know mowing people down on a sidewalk was a crime.. they should have moved out the way!

Sal is genuinely pissed for the first time. Like it's insane how mad he got for this. It's valid but no one expected it. Like Travis is very receptive of his emotions most times, so when he's recounting a 'funny' story of how his friends bullied him and he feels this strong anger he thinks it's Larry at first but is terrified to see Sal just staring at him.

Larry straight up beats them up. He could give a fuck on Travis' excuses. He heard them all before. In fact he's mad at himself for allowing it to get this far. he should have never allowed Travis near those guys. He saw how they treated a student whom later went missing. He refuses to put Travis at risk of the same fate!

Todd hacks them and makes sure they don't go to any college (or any good college) and if their rich, their parents better have a spotless record or he's making them bankrupt and imprisoned.

Neil is more of the emotional support (With Chug & Maple to assist) when Travis is worried he said something wrong. They have been working on getting him out of his learned trauma responses and were worried sick when they started worsening one day. The people he had associated himself with made it pretty evident what was going on and why Travis was impacted so harshly.

Ash, just like Larry, straight up fights them. She doesn't stop at just physically beating their ass. She makes sure to beat their ass verbally and mentally. Causing infighting with the group, ratting them out for cheating or bullying and having their separate peers turn on them, isolating them. One of them has a crush? Hah, Ash already told them what you did, you'll die sad and alone loser!

[valkyriesexual]

do you know of any resources/ research/ books that focus on domestic abuse in queer relationships in particular or queer people in relationships that appear to be cishet on first glance but aren’t (like a bi person in a relationship with a straight person, a trans person in a relationship with a cis person etc.)? or that address how other marginalizations might affect abuse dynamics/ numbers? i appreciate all the resources that are out there about predominantly female victims and predominantly male perpetrators but i always wonder if there are any differences when it comes to queer relationships or other added marginalizations (like disability or being a poc). i’d love to read more about this! i know, for example, that my experiences would be seen as those of a woman in a straight relationship but i’m neither straight not cis and i wonder about other people’s identities becoming invisible in statistics or discussions in the same way. do you know more about this? in your experience, are the dynamics largely the same or are there added issues?

there are 100% added issues any time you have some intersection of a marginalized identity with domestic violence. some that i am extremely familiar with and see play out in my practice is that (1) police officers and the criminal justice system in general is less likely to believe women of color and particularly black women, especially if the other party is white, and (2) police officers are more likely to see both parties as equal perpetrators in same sex relationships.

some resources:

for actual lgbtq/gnc ppl experiencing dv: futures without violence: lgbtq safety card, trans gnc safety card, serving trans and gnc survivors of dv,

research: vawnet.org has many useful links including this link; cdc: members of LGBTQ communities experience domestic and sexual violence at rates that are equal to or higher than non-LGBTQ people, particularly when they hold additional marginalized identities, such as being a woman of color or an undocumented immigrant. (cdc findings); the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS); the williams institute has a massive amount of very important and very credible research.

Contextualizing Domestic Violence from a LGBTQ Perspective is a great short read with some helpful references.

For a longer read, there is Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Lives (Routledge Research in Gender and Society) but it's a whole ass textbook and it costs as much as a textbook, so it's not the most accessible (book review).

Organizations that focus specifically on the issue of domestic violence within LGBTQ communities: the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), The Northwest Network, the National LGBTQ Institute on IPV, The Network/La Red, and FORGE, and of course (although they've been fairly critiqued for many things) the HRC

big library full of additional links

hope this helps!

[if you found this post helpful or informative, please consider subscribing to my substack, it does take me a decent amount of time to research, write, and source posts like this, and substack subscriptions are deeply appreciated]

[battlestar-royco]

don’t really know if this is an articulate thought but some of the best advice i’ve ever gotten from a mentor figure was my first gender studies teacher who told me that if there’s a question that someone/something is [x] then they most likely are [x].

like if your kill bill sirens are going off about a user on here who made or rbed a post that was kind of racist, chances are they’re fucking racist and/or have the potential to become traumatically racist. and it’s not your job to teach them or save them from their own racism. and especially in “woque” creator/(white) women dominated fandom circles i’ve found that disturbingly often, people will use “progressive” language and logics to gaslight fandom at large into thinking blatantly racist/transphobic/sexist etc users, takes, and media are some sort of amazing feminist thing.

and typically the targets or victims of this tactic are the most marginalized fans getting their language/arguments co-opted and purposely misinterpreted to the benefit of white shippers and stans. and then all the valid and important arguments made by marginalized people are thrown into question, as the white stans intended. so trust your instincts and know you don’t have to put up with shit that makes you uncomfortable. otherwise white feminists will genuinely have you wondering if you have internalized self hatred due to the fact that you don’t vibe with a fake white person who shed a tear while dismembering/immolating randos and is actually a queer coded femme coded poc coded diaspora radical socialist abuse survivor

[reallyverynormal]

hey im a proshipper, but i have a friend who isnt either proship or anti. she wants to know more about the anti side of things, if you dont mind could you tell me why you are anti ship? and why you believe others should be? i wanna let her make this decision on her own, but idk how anti shippers think and i cant find informational posts on it

this ended up getting kind of long so i’m just going to put it under a readmore but basically anti shippers are people who say this: don’t fetishize minorities, abuse and abuse survivors and also don’t write paedophilic porn and act like that’s a normal thing for cishet women to get off to.

-don’t fetishize abuse and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t take a character that is canonically abusive to another character and write some romanticized tortured love story about it, or act like victims have to or can forgive their abusers for abusing them (not saying they can’t, but perpetuating the idea that they can/have to is bad, actually). just fucking don’t -don’t fetishize paedophilia and act like it’s hot or cute. by that i mean don’t write porn of children, don’t write porn of ‘aged up’ children, don’t write porn of adults raping/being in sexual contact with children and act like it’s hot or cute or something normal to get off to -don’t dehumanize gay men, lesbians, trans people--basically the entire LGBT community--by fetishizing them, calling porn of us “sin”, only writing smut fics about us and nothing else, trying to constantly find ways to ship two men in every piece of media, hate literally any female character that could potentially be a love interest just because she gets in the way of your ship. don’t fucking fetishize us, actually! -don’t act like rape/sexual abuse/sexual assault is hot. period. -also don’t write porn about real life fuckin people without their permission, especially, in the cases of people like dan and phil, when they are very clearly deeply uncomfortable with it and the abuse/harassment they have received from this, (tomska and tord from the eddsworld team and 1direction as a whole are also good examples of this shit affecting real life people).

and by these things, i don’t mean that you can’t write about these subjects ever or portray characters involving some of these subjects ever, i’m saying don’t fetishize them. don’t act like fiction doesn’t affect reality, because it does, (look up the jaws affect, as a huge example), and don’t act like you are above the law, because even the law (in the US and canada, at least), can and will punish you for drawing and writing porn about children. 

fetishizing minorities is, you guessed it, dehumanizing and wrong! black people, asian people and the LGBT community especially get this kind of treatment, and if you go around agreeing with the black and asian people who are talking about the fetishization of their races by white people, and you don’t agree with actual LGBT people talking about the fetishization of their gender/sexuality, you’re a fucking hypocrite*. fetishizing any fucking minority is bad, even in fiction.

note that there is also a difference between LGBT people going out of their way to ship two characters together in a queer/gay/etc ship and a cishet girl going out of their way to constantly ship two men together in every piece of media no matter what, especially if those two characters are white/light-skinned, skinny, conventionally attractive cis men. in the case of LGBT people, we’re doing it to create the representation we don’t get in media. for a cishet girl to go out of their way to ship two men in every fandom they join is just fetishization and it’s dehumanizing because we are not your fetish, we are not here to entertain you, we have lives to live outside of entertaining you and getting you off and often times we have spent years trying to get out of circles where people only see us as sex objects. fuck off. 

fetishizing people’s abuse and turning something horrific into something you can get off to is also extremely shitty and spits in the faces of actual abuse survivors because you’re acting like it’s cute, hot, something to get off to when we’ve often spent years trying to forget what’s happened to us. when we’re still going through this every fuckin day. when people have killed themselves because of the abuse that we’ve gone through. when you do this, you act like what we went through is just something for you to get off to when it is often so bad we are left permanently scarred, our consciousnesses permanently broken, struggling with life-long mental health issues directly caused by the abuse we went through. that is not your fucking fetish.

again--i’m not saying you can’t write about these subjects, i’m saying don’t fetishize them, i.e. don’t act like any of these things can be a good thing, don’t write them like they’re something to get off to, don’t write them like they’re something to strive for or can be in any way, shape or form healthy. write them as they are: horrific, scarring, mentally and physically draining, terrifying, and nightmare-inducing. do not portray these things in a positive light is all we are fucking asking.

inb4 “so we’re not allowed to write characters who think their abuse is good???” or some bullshit like that, no, that’s not what i’m saying. you can write a character who has an extremely complicated relationship with their abuse, for example being sexually abused from childhood and “liking” it because that’s how they were trained to respond to sexual situations, that’s how they were introduced to sex and their body responds to sexually violent situations by being aroused, even if the person doesn’t want to be because biology =/= consent, and that’s how sexual trauma works, albeit not for everyone, but for some people like me. you can write about a character that struggles with “liking” their trauma because sexual violence and being a victim of it is what feels safe, “normal” and familiar to them, while healthy sex is foreign and terrifying because they don’t know how to behave in a healthy sexual environment. that is a normal thing to write about and should, in fact, be written about more because i don’t see anything like that being written by anyone anywhere, and is, in my opinion, FAR more interesting than forcefully writing a character to be in love with their abuser and entirely romanticizing their abusive relationship, (that isn’t to say that you can’t write a character that’s in love with their abuser and wants to forgive them/make it work/ignores the abuse/doesn’t know it’s abuse/etc, just stop acting like their relationship is in any way healthy or something to strive for or cute/hot/etc, just don’t fucking romanticize the abuse they’re going through, portray it as a bad thing because that’s what it is--a bad thing).

that’s the anti-shipper argument: don’t fetishize people, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse, don’t fetishize (sexual) abuse survivors, and don’t fetishize paedophilia.

it’s pretty simple once you break it down, but i hope my relatively detailed explanation shows you why you’re an asshole, and i desperately hope your friend doesn’t turn out to be like you in this regard :)

*i’m a white person, so if any POC finds this statement racist or offensive or knows of a better way to word it, feel free to let me know and i’ll delete it/change it/etc

[madamslayyy]

I’m sorry to bother you but I had a question I wanted your input on! As a poc and a member of the lgbtq community, how do you feel about lady Gaga? I only ask because she’s considered this queer icon but I personally can’t get over how she defended R Kelly against the young victims. Do you feel anything about this, personally? I liked her before but I feel like it was an offense against a lot of survivors of rape who are crucified for trying to make their abusers go public especially today

You’re not bothering me at all! Sorry it took me so long to see this! And I don’t really care about Lady Gaga one way or another other than those hits she had back in like 2009. And I’m not surprised she’d defend R Kelly because at the end of the day she white first and a.) white women are known to, y’know, defend rapists and b.) his victims were primarily black girls/ girls of color and white women just don’t see them as victims or children because of their own racist belief in the stereotype of oversexualization of Black/brown girls. Or maybe she’s just a awful person who couldn’t care less what he’s done if it gets her some radio plays 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

[cameoamalthea]

I'm surprised you aren't more supportive of Roy Moore, seeing as you're pretty much a pedophilia apologist

I’m a survivor of CSA. I couldn’t consummate my marriage on my wedding night because I needed to have surgery first to repair some internal damage. I spent a year, beginning in summer 2016, in physical therapy, pelvic floor therapy, because even after the surgery the physical scar tissue and phycological scars (subconscious discomfort means I could never relax those muscles, not even to wear a tampon or have exams that I needed to have because I have PCOS). I blogged about it. It’s under my recovery tag. I’m in therapy, and DBT. 

And I’m learning to manage my triggers, but being called a “pedophile apologist” or insinuating I support child abuse is still a trigger and I really really really wish people like you would not insinuate that I wanted what happened to me.

How dare you. 

And you’re mocking my posts about the need to stop sexual exploitation of teenagers and the culture that enables it, because I’m pro-books, anti-censorship and tired of people tearing down works by queer creators?

“Call Me By Your Name” is an award winning novel, which won the  20th Lambda Literary Awards for gay fiction. 

Reviewing Call Me By Your Name for The New York Times, Stacey D'Erasmo called the novel “an exceptionally beautiful book”.[1]Writing in The New Yorker, Cynthia Zarin said, “Aciman’s first novel shows him to be an acute grammarian of desire”.[2] In The Washington Post, Charles Kaiser said, “If you have ever been the willing victim of obsessive love—a force greater than yourself that pulls you inextricably toward the object of your desire—you will recognize every nuance of André Aciman’s superb new novel, ‘Call Me by Your Name.’

The novel is by a Jewish POC author (he was born in Egypt, fled to Italy, and is now an American and a Proust scholar - so it’s fair to say he knows queer lit).  

The book has been adapted into a Film by Italian director Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory who are both gay men.

So this is a film written and directed by gay men, telling a gay love story about a Jewish gay boy, based on a book by a Jewish POC author.

 Call Me by Your Name was selected by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year.[122][123] It received eight nominations at Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.[124] It led the Independent Spirit Awards with most nomination, garnering six, among them Best Feature, Best Director, Best Male Lead, Best Supporting Male, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.[125] At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for Chalamet, and Best Supporting Actor for Hammer.[126]Call Me by Your Name won the Grand Prize at the Chéries-Chéris Festival.[127]Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival awarded the film NOS Audience Award,[128] and Chalamet received Best Actor award at New York Film Critics Circle.[129]Gotham Independent Film Awardsand Hollywood Film Awards both awarded Chalamet, with their Breakout Actor Awards.

The story is about a 17 year old who falls in love with a 24 year old student over a summer. It is not, as mischaracterized by @socialisttexan, a story that ‘normalizes grown men preying on teenagers’

A 17 year old character becomes friends with a 24 year old student and has a crush on him. The 17 year old brags about having sex with his girlfriend to see how the 24 year old will react. He sneaks into the student’s room while he’s not there and does creepy sexual things in Oliver’s bed while touching Oliver’s clothes without his knowledge or consent (you can read the summary yourself, it’s on wikipedia). He tells the 24 year old he has feelings for him, and the 24 year old tells him no. The 17 year old later kisses the 24 year old without his consent, the 24 year old stops him and says they can’t do more. They stop being friends, but after a few days of distance, the 24 year old admits that he likes his friend too and they sleep together. 

This is not an older man who sought out a younger man in order to use his youth or inexperience to coerce him into sex. This is a man who became friends with a younger guy while staying at the guy’s parents house, working for his dad, and was pursued by the younger guy. 

Rape is sex when there’s not consent. Preying on someone is manipulating or coercing someone to do something they do not want to do. 

This novel features sex between a 17 year old and a 24 year old  that is consensual, and the only one who did anything wrong was the 17 year old (who acted creepy, and didn’t take no for an answer).

In comparison, Roy Moore is a real a person who hurt real teenagers. He sexually harassed them. He was in his 30s at the time, not a peer or a friend. He met one victim after her mother asked him to watch her while she went into Court to testify, thinking she could trust her daughter with the assistant DA (the lawyer in charge of prosecuting criminals). Roy Moore explicitly used his position of power to force himself on his victims.

“You’re just a child, I’m the district attorney; if you tell anyone about this no one will ever believe you.”

[23]

[24]

Roy Moore is a sexual predator and a rapist. 

If you don’t see any difference between defending a novel and film depicting a consensual relationship with a age gap and a rapist forcing himself on teenage girls, then you don’t understand why rape wrong.

As a rape survivor, lawyer and advocate, let me give you a hint: IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO TOUCH YOU. 

Because you’re too young to ever understand what they’re doing. Because you don’t want to be touched like that and they’re hurting you. And you want it to stop, but you can’t stop it. And you blame yourself for not stopping it and still wonder ‘maybe I did something wrong?’

And look at old pictures of you as a child, posing for pictures, and wondering if maybe you acted too sexy, maybe you did something wrong. Because maybe that’s less scary than the truth that there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. Because the worst feeling in the world is to be helpless.

And then you deal with people telling you that you support child molestation and rape and that voice that says ‘your fault’ is there again. 

 I like books about people falling in love and wanting sex, because I could never have that when I was 17 - I’m too damaged, but I like seeing sex presented as something that can be good, and consensual and not about hurting you. 

And I like books in general. I have an English degree with a specialty in Fiction Writing. And I’m anti-censorship in general, I was vice-President of my law school’s ACLU chapter. And I don’t believe that books can only exist as moral guidelines and examples of healthy good behavior. Fiction isn’t instructional, you want the non-fiction section for that. Fiction tells stories. 

And you don’t have to like every book or read every book or see every movie, but maybe stop attacking gay works and holding them to this standard of only 100% morally right, especially since so much of the gay rights movement has been a fight for the right for gay media to be just as sexual and amoral as straight media.  

Because it’s hard enough for gay works to get published and get adapted into movies. Publishers don’t like gambling, and it’s already seen as a gamble because it’s ‘gay’ - if making it gay means a higher chance of backlash, then that’s not incentive to publish gay works. 

[dragonterriers]

you go to allegheny college right? im just wondering what it’s like over there im accepted but idk if i should go or not bc im worried i wont fit in whats ur experience like over there?

Hello friend!Boy howdy this is a complicated question, it’s gonna have a long answer so hold onto your ramen cause we’re going for a rideI really love the people here. That’s why a lot of people come- you can usually settle into a group of friends pretty quickly bc a lot of the students here are chill af, and 96% of the faculty are the most caring individuals you’ll ever meet and they take your life, as a learner and otherwise, seriously. Professors regularly email you if you miss more than a couple classes to make sure you’re okay, everyone knows each other, the President almost always strolls around campus giving words of wisdom (and occasionally hugs!) to people. It feels like home and that’s why I like it. Additionally, the academics are rigorous and challenging (depending on your major, you will probably be writing papers regularly, most of which will be at least 5 pages; there’s also our senior comp, which is a research project akin to a dissertation and is usually 20-150 pages long depending on your department), but the professors are really there to make sure you grasp the content. And the financial aid is pretty good- it’s still hella expensive, but they usually toss you a good wad of cash to get you going. THAT SAID. There’s a lot of problems, institutionally; some may affect you and some may not, and since I don’t know anything about you I’ll just give a rundown and you can come back with any specific questions you have. First. Our Title IX office (which deals mostly with sexual harassment/assault/etc) is HORRENDOUS. Cases are extremely slow to even be looked at and solutions are rarely implemented. In many cases, people who commit acts of sexual violence are allowed to stay on campus, which often leads to the survivors leaving- we are a small campus after all and you’re bound to run into them eventually. Just last semester, we had a student who had two PFAs (Protection From Assault/Abuse (cant remember which of those it is), a document ordered by a county court similar to a restraining order) against him who was permitted to stay on campus after two separate girls accused him of attempted sexual assault. The girls had attempted to go through our Title IX office, but that proved so ineffective they ended up going to county court instead (which is a lot of extra steps most of the time). There have been countless similar cases of our Title IX office responding inadequately or extremely slow; a friend of mine sophomore year requested to get her locks on her room changed due to an incident and it took them over two months to do so. Tldr; I have a friend that works at the local domestic violence shelter and they were having a training where the question of where to direct a college student who has been assaulted for help. One of the non-college people brought up Gheny’s Title IX office and every SINGLE student in the room made it very clear that that is the exact opposite of what you should do.Generally, Allegheny tends to be reactive rather than proactive; they respond to individual incidents when they happen (albeit usually poorly), but never take steps to make sure they don’t happen again unless the student body puts ENORMOUS pressure on administrators. During my freshman year, a student was hit by a car at night, due to the fact that the main road on campus (which is also a main road into town) did not have any street lamps. The student was killed. After running a campaign about pedestrian safety that felt EXTREMELY victim blame-y, they did install some lights on that road, but none of the others, so the rest of campus is still hella dark and I would probably not recommend walking around at night for a whole lotta reasons. Our racial diversity is... disappointing. Especially faculty. We have two Black professors left on campus, I think, plus some other faculty members here and there (there were a LOT more; there’s been at least 5-10 faculty members of color that have left since I came here in 2015); no Native faculty that I’m aware of, a couple Southeast Asian, a couple Latinx, etc, but it’s pretty dismal. We can recruit faculty of color but they don’t stay for long; partially because the school doesn’t appreciate the efforts they make and partially because Meadville (the town we’re in) is not always safe for POC. That tends to trickle down into students of color as well. Queer/trans stuff- we’re getting there. We have two trans faculty members that I’m aware of (one of which is a counselor and one who is an associate dean), and a handful that are some flavor of queer. Generally, you can walk around campus with your same-gender partner or expressing your gender however you like with minimal problems, though I would be cautious in town. We have some limited gender-inclusive housing options and all-gender restrooms in many of the academic buildings; when I was working in the IDEAS Center (our multicultural office) last year one of my projects was to go to every building and tally the restrooms in every building, how many stalls etc and I /think/ we got all of the single-stall bathrooms converted into all-gender because of that? And we may look into de-gendering some multi stall bathrooms if we can. We have some work to do here but we’re getting there. All in all- it’s a really great place in terms of the people you meet and the education you get. It’s really great for networking because our alumni are super involved with current students and it’s really easy to get into jobs and internships if you utilize the alumni connections. The education is also phenomenal prep for grad school, since the work you do here is only a half-step down from what most places require for a masters. Everything feels really homey and it’s easy to find your place- but it’s really REALLY hard to find help if something does go wrong. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to do one of the overnight visits if you can, as physically being here is what really gives you the best feel for the school in my opinion. If you visit here please let me know and I’d be happy to talk with you in person and show you around to all the cool shit they don’t show you on tours. Best of luck in deciding on your college friend!!!

[adoredykelano]

why do you hate taylor swift so much? i'm sorry if this comes off as rude or it isn't correct i was just wondering

it’s long so i’m putting this under a cut

i don’t hate her. 

i don’t like her new song, and i don’t like her new “era” or whatever you want to call it. i don’t like that she uses queer PoC as props in her music videos and that she doesn’t get called out for it when other artists who aren’t seen as innocent sexless white women do (miley cyrus, for example). i don’t like that she used imagery that draws from the crucifixion of jesus, that it seems like she’s trying to draw parallels between them or paint herself as some righteous martyr. i don’t like that she used imagery from beyoncé’s videos. i don’t like that she’s releasing her album on the anniversary of kanye’s mother’s death - whether the date was picked because of that or not, it doesn’t matter, someone should’ve done fucking research especially since they KNEW that this album was going to target kanye and kim and katy, and all the other people she’s had public fights with. i don’t like that she has built a brand on feuding with other people and turns around and pretends like she hasn’t done anything to warrant criticism.

but i don’t hate her. i know that she’s been the target of a lot of nasty rumors and actions. i know that she was assaulted and that she doesn’t deserve that, that she could never do anything to warrant that. and i absolutely don’t think people should say she’s “playing the victim” when it comes to her assault, because she is a victim. HOWEVER. people are calling anyone who disagrees with her and how she is conducting herself currently a r*pe apologist, which is flat out fucking WRONG. i haven’t seen one person say that she deserved to be assaulted or that she’s faking or say anything negative toward her when it comes to her assault. that’s not to say that somewhere people aren’t doing that, obviously, because i don’t have my eyes on every corner of the internet but the vast majority of people that i have seen saying anything about her aren’t going after her for her assault, and to say that we are is disingenuous and kind of gross.

i don’t like that she’s doing a lot of the things that she’s doing, and i definitely think there are ways to say what she wants to without doing it the way that she has. kesha was also assaulted, she was abused for years at the hands of someone who had a great deal of power over her career and her image, and when she finally broke free of him she released an album full of songs about overcoming, about persevering, about finding self-love, about hearing people say things about you and knowing they’re not true and moving the fuck on with your life. there are ways to show that you’ve moved past a situation without trying to demonize and drag people through the mud. and yes, there are ways to talk about your own assault and abuse without “playing the victim.” you can play the survivor, instead. because that’s what you are if you let yourself get there.

i don’t like that she has a system in place that makes it nearly impossible for people who don’t buy merchandise to get tickets to her tour. i don’t like that she is making people spend $20, or $60, or $100, and rewarding people who spend more money by moving them up on the list so they’re more likely to get tickets. i honestly think that out of most everything already listed, this is the thing that disgusts me the most.

and if we’re being honest here, i don’t like that she refuses to distance herself from white nationalists and n*zis who are using her new song as their fucking anthem. i don’t like that she didn’t speak up during the election, knowing that a lot of her audience would listen to her opinion if she had voiced one. i don’t like that she refuses to speak up now because she either doesn’t think it matters to speak up or because she doesn’t want to jeopardize album sales. 

and it’s not like i’m a fan of kanye or kim or katy or anyone else who she’s had feuds with, really. i don’t think she’s inherently a bad person, i truly don’t. i think that she’s done a lot of good things, but that doesn’t excuse the bad things she’s done either and i won’t pretend that i’m okay with the way she’s handling things.

[granvarones]

CN: mentions of anti-Blackness, holding non-black people of color accountable, performative activism, colonialism, mentions of death, police brutality etc. PEASE READ if you can!

Ok but seriously though, with everything that’s been going on in the past week (and forever, really), ie #PhilandoCastile's murderer being acquitted, and new developments of police killing #CharleenaLyles, the murder of Nabra Hassanen, and of course things that happen every day that will never make headlines. What are we as non-Black POC doing to dismantle anti-Blackness in our communities, families, etc. (especially us light skin folks)?

Like way beyond posting shit on social media to ease your conscience. I'm talking about chopping up all these big academic words about racial injustice with your tíxs, primxs, comrades, etc. I'm talking about explaining to folks WHY what they said/did was wrong. I mean stop excusing anti-Blackness as just glorified "messiness" I mean holding our community members accountable when they slip up, even if it's "just that one time". VIOLENCE IS VIOLENCE! Period. Full stop. I get feeling uncomfortable or feeling afraid of getting into an argument with someone you care for, but I'm SURE a bit of discomfort over dinner is a lot less worse than the violence Black folks face just for breathing and existing. Being uncomfy means you have stuff to unlearn!

Edit to add: before you say "But I'm not anti-Black" note that our very existence as non-Black people is INHERENTLY anti-Black. And at the end of the day, we don't get to decide what is or isn't anti-Black.

Our communities are rife with this shit. But we need to own up to our shit. Because the fact is we attended the colonizers' tea party, and we drank from their cups. And something most of have been afraid to admit is that WE LIKED IT. We liked being able to assimilate, to have a group more marginalized than us to feed our egos. We can be/have been JUST as anti-Black as white folks. We feel just as much entitlement to appropriate Black culture as white folks. (Hell non-Black Latinx have stolen a SHIT TON from Black cultures. ie. music, style/fashion, language/"slang" and much more. And let me tell you, almost all of us have that one family member who's still scratch their heads trying to wrap their head around the fact that Black folks can speak Spanish. (Hello Black Latinx erasure) *eyeroll* or who claims "pero yo soy blanca!!")

We need to start speaking the hell up! And doing our part, and make it crystal fucking clear that anti-Blackness has NO place in our communities and movements. And that it won't be tolerated. We need to be en la calle doing what we can! Like jfc stop being so silent. I'm not saying you have to know everything either... just like... damn put in the work! Quit with the performative activism. Stop with doing the bare minimum just to tell yourself that you're doing enough and feed your ego. This is LITERALLY life and death, people!

- Nik Angel Moreno

Nik Angel Moreno is a 24-year-old, disabled, queer, Chicano writer, poet, and crochet artist hailing from south Texas, but currently transplanted in northeast Pennsylvania.

His writing has been featured in Wear Your Voice Magazine, The Body is Not an Apology, and Latina Magazine. His poetry has been featured in Hooligan Magazine as well as his Chap Book titled Liberación (2016). He has also independently published zines such as This Not That: A Guide to Eliminating Ableist Language, and Why Disabled People Are Magic.

He mostly enjoys educating readers about Ableism, White Supremacy, and other institutional power structures through his writing and zines. He is actively involved in advocating for people with disabilities and involved in the discussion surrounding disability rights. He also is passionate in writing about rape culture, trauma, and survivor-ship of abuse and trauma. He is an activist and advocate for victims of rape, sexual assault, abuse, and trauma, and he is very dedicated to the healing and recovery of trauma survivors.

Nik continues to write and educate, resist, and express himself through his poetry, zines, as well as articles.