#i hope he learns to be Less Accidentally Racist obviously. but i also hope he puts up better boundaries w fans going forward

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

alright so i’m ONLY posting these for context and if y’all don’t behave i’m turning off reblogs/comments and deleting this post, but on the left is con’s tweet that started the discourse and on the right is his apology. his original tweet is making a joke of a racist stereotype abt colombians and cocaine. his account is deleted now. i’m not here to cancel or excuse con, i’m just posting this for ppl who have no idea what everyone’s yelling about

and hey!! @ white fans!!! it is NOT OUR PLACE to forgive con OR weigh in on this. and it is ESPECIALLY not our place to speak over poc/latine fans abt this. idc if you think his apology is genuine or if it’s shit, that’s not our place to decide. i’m only putting this here so ppl at least know what’s going on but for the LOVE of god can we please be normal about this.

[incomprehensiblelentils]

Lentils’ 2020 Christmas Movie Rankings

My wife and I watched a lot of Christmas movies this year, and I thought it would be fun to rank them based on which ones I think were most watchable and enjoyable. I’ve left out a few that we watched during this time period, which are classic Christmas movies (Miracle on 34th Street), action movies set at Christmas (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3), or older romances set around Christmas (While You Were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail), because it’s not fair to rank these amongst, well, some of the movies we saw.

my top 5, for those of you who don’t like reading (which is fair): The Princess Switch: Switched Again, Dashing in December, The Princess Switch, Jingle Jangle, Happiest Season.

my top 3 Chaotic Christmas Movies: A New York Christmas Wedding, 12 Pups of Christmas, The Princess Switch: Switched Again. Please watch these movies if you enjoy chaotic plots. Please especially watch the first two I listed because holy shit my summaries do not properly convey the chaos.

The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020): Some people on the internet have been VERY RUDE about this movie and I’m sorry they don’t appreciate a true chaotic holiday gem when they see it. This movie involves two Vanessa Hudgenses, Scheduled Vanessa and Spontaneous Vanessa, who are distant cousins and not twins, switching places to try to facilitate Spontaneous Vanessa getting back together with her ex the baker, but Scheduled Vanessa is intercepted by a third cousin Vanessa, Horny Vanessa, who wants to take Spontaneous Vanessa’s place as queen. I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in this movie so that you can experience the batshittery for yourself, but I found every second absolutely delightful. It also has two very good romantic couples who are cute and who genuinely seem to like each other, which is not something I can say for every movie on this list!

Dashing in December (2020): This movie has gay cowboys, is set on a ranch, and features a squaredancing scene, so if that isn’t your bag, you are probably not going to like it very much. I found it deeply charming and the only reason it isn’t #1 is that three quarters of the way through, the lead suddenly turns back into a giant jerk for no real reason and that was very upsetting. But it all works out in the end. The main romance is very cute, there are horses, the horsemanship doesn’t totally suck ass, and there are some fun side characters. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s pleasant.

The Princess Switch (2018): Again, some people are mean about this movie and they shouldn’t be because it is CUTE GODDAMMIT. It is absolutely The Prince and the Pauper but with two Vanessa Hudgenses, but also, it shows the aforementioned two good romantic couples falling in love and they are delightful. I am not saying this is a great masterpiece of romance, but the filmmakers actually tried to give these characters reasons to like each other, which, again, is not true for some of the movies on this list.\

Jingle Jangle (2020): I kind of feel bad putting this movie on the same list as TV movies that were obviously just shit out by Hallmark or whoever, because this clearly had a lot of love and heart put into it, and it really shows. I was so immediately charmed by this movie that I didn’t even mind when it immediately went in very silly directions. I don’t know if the plot makes sense at all (a cute robot shows up for seemingly no reason other than that cute robots are fun!) but it doesn’t have to, because everyone is having so much fun and there’s so much joy in this movie that I was just happy to be along for the ride. Also, I would love to see an entire movie in the stop-motion style from the opening scene.

Happiest Season (2020): I absolutely understand why some people didn’t like this movie, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t dislike it, and also, it’s MY movie, and I love it, and I’m not interested in fighting about it. It helped me come out to my parents and also featured two of my faves kissing and that’s all I need. 

Noelle (2019): I was previously under the impression this movie was bad, and I don’t know why, because it’s a little embarrassing and cheesy at times, but it’s sweet. I suspect what will make or break it for you is if you like Anna Kendrick, and because I like Anna Kendrick, I like watching her play a neurotic Claus sibling trying desperately to fix the problem she accidentally caused. One weird thing though: this movie tried to convince me about halfway through that she was both spoiled and selfish, and I don’t actually think that’s true at all. I think she was a little naive and sheltered and wanted people to like her way too much, but she’s not really shown to be a selfish person - she’s constantly paying attention to other people in the real world and her brother is the one who refused to admit that he wasn’t cut out for the Santa gig and instead fucked off to “find himself” or whatever. It was weird! But anyway, I liked this movie a lot.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998): So this movie...one Christmas Eve when I was in high school, I was having trouble falling asleep for whatever reason so I went downstairs to get some water. My mom happened to have the TV on and this movie was just starting, and she invited me to join her. Fun fact: this movie went to theaters and it stars Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Jessica Biel. It is one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen in my life and at no point does anyone in it actually behave like a human being. It’s about a smooth-talking jackass who has to be bribed to come home for Christmas and then, after one of his dumbass moneymaking schemes lands him in hot water, he gets abandoned in the middle of the California desert wearing a Santa suit and glued-on beard. He then has to beg, lie, and cheat his way home for Christmas dinner so that his dad will give him a vintage Porsche they fixed up together. I have no defense for this character; he is insufferable and only becomes marginally less so by the end of the film. But also, I have to watch this movie every year (usually with my mom, although not this year for obvious reasons) or it doesn’t feel like Christmas. 

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019): We own this on DVD and have seen it three times. In our defense, we wanted to support Gregg Sulkin from Runaways and Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, both of whom feature prominently in this movie, and also sing songs. This is just Cinderella But At Christmas, and if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, I don’t think anything I can say will change your mind. I will say that the songs are amusingly autotuned, there’s a disabled dog that’s very cute, and I personally think that the leads have slightly better chemistry than some of the pairs on this list. But it is literally just another Cinderella Story movie.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019): This movie is Thor (2011) But At Christmas, and it would have been slightly higher except I always forget about the plot where at the end the knight becomes a cop. Bad, obviously! But anyway, the plot of this movie is: nice but clueless dude crash-lands on Earth for Reasons and bumbles around trying to figure out what’s up, while falling in love with a nice lady. That’s just Thor and you know I’m right. And for as dumb as this movie is, at least it’s ambitious. I have learned that Christmas movies can do one of two things to please me: a) have actors that have decent chemistry and charm and are fully committed to whatever nonsense is going on, or b) have absolutely batshit chaotic plots. This movie is like a 4 out of 5 on the chaos scale and I like it a lot, besides the copaganda. I hope this also gets made into a trilogy and Cole isn’t a cop anymore.

A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby (2019): I will get into my problems with the first two Christmas Prince movies later, but my main criticism is that they are kind of boring and not chaotic enough. This one decided to make up for that by incorporating a missing ancient treaty, a curse, and a ghost, as well as a subplot about Girl Power (I use this semi-ironically) and a subplot about cousin Simon potentially committing treason again. I was so excited that things were happening in this movie the first time I watched it that I may be a little biased, but oh well. Oh, I was also absolutely terrified it was going to be racist and it is...mostly not? There are a few questionable moments but like mostly it’s fine.

Christmas With the Prince (2018): I wanted to watch this because the summary on Netflix did not match the summary on Google at all, and that’s because, uh, they’re both sort of right? Ostensibly this movie is about a pediatric oncologist who comes back into contact with an old almost-flame, who just happens to be the prince of a tiny European country, because he fucked up his leg and needs somewhere private to stay. And apparently a pediatric oncology ward is the best place for that? But then after they fall in love this random Russian lady shows up and is like “that’s my fiance.” This happens maybe twenty minutes from the end. Anyway, this movie isn’t great but I liked the lead guy way more than I thought I would and it has some cute kids in it.

A New York Christmas Wedding (2020): I...am at a loss for words to describe this...motion picture. On the surface it is a cute idea: a young Black woman, Jennifer, is getting married to her boyfriend on Christmas Eve, but she’s given a chance by her guardian angel (stay with me) to go back in time and redo her life, after losing touch with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle, who she was always in love with but never confessed her feelings to. She wakes up in an alternate timeline, where she and Gabrielle have been together for years and her beloved father is still alive. Then the movie, uh...veers off into some very odd places! They go to their Catholic priest and ask him to marry them, and he is like “but the Bible” and they are like “but that’s bullshit” and he’s like “shrug” and then later during a sermon he’s like “actually that IS bullshit, everyone gay in this church come stand up here with me. We love you. Also we’re going to perform a wedding now” and then he marries Jennifer and Gabrielle. And then Jennifer’s angel shows up and is like “you have to choose between this life and your old life now” and then uh...I really hate to spoil this next thing. It is the weirdest choice I’ve ever seen a movie make and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in this movie, I think you should experience this plot point for yourself. I’m going to put the batshit spoiler in ROT13 in case you want to avoid spoiling yourself. (GJ: fhvpvqr) Wraavsre'f thneqvna natry erirnyf gung ur vf gur fba bs Tnoevryyr, jub va gur bevtvany gvzryvar tbg certanag nf n grra naq ure snzvyl frag ure gb n ahaarel. Fur zvfpneevrq naq fhofrdhragyl qvrq ol fhvpvqr. Uvf anzr vf Nmenry Tnovfba. Anyway, uh, this movie isn’t very good, unfortunately, the adult leads have no chemistry and Gabrielle’s adult self is actively unlikable (the teen versions of them are cute!), but I think it’s 1000% worth a watch for the sheer chaos of it all. I...recommend it for that, I guess? Oh, also there’s a sex scene that plays a slow sexy version of “O Christmas Tree” in the background and I felt like I was losing my mind. 

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018): As I said in my commentary on the third movie in this series, the worst sin this movie commits is being kind of boring. It also manages to make the romantic hero, Richard, even worse than in the first movie, where he was just kind of useless and petulant, because in this movie he is actively failing to do anything to revive the failing economy of his country. I have seen people complain that the prince in The Princess Switch and Cole in The Knight Before Christmas have no personalities; they are delightful compared to the wet paper bag of a man in this movie. Rose McIver is adorable and I don’t think any of this is her fault, she’s doing her best in these movies, but woof.

12 Pups of Christmas (2019): The Google summary of this movie, which we found on Hulu, is this: “Struggling to keep his dog GPS locator company afloat, Martin expects his new hire, Erin, to help him save the company and find homes for 12 puppies that were left behind after a photo shoot. As they work together, Erin and Martin begin to discover each other's positive qualities and find love just in time for the holidays.” My wife and I love dogs, so we put this on, expecting cute dogs. This movie contains approximately 80% chaos and 20% cute dogs. It opens with our heroine, a canine therapist, coming home from work to have dinner with her fiance and best friend. We find out that Erin and fiance are moving to California soon for her new job (they live in New York). Fast forward a few days to their courthouse wedding, at which point her fiance and best friend confess to having an affair, and she is dumped. Heartbroken, she moves to California alone, and ends up moving into the company-provided house. It is just a two-story house (??) that the CEO’s sister owns (???) and rents out to employees (????). Also Erin is, as the Google summary says, expected to come up with some grand idea to save the company. And there are 12 random puppies also. They are cute puppies. Oh, also Martin, the CEO of the dog collar company, hates dogs for some reason. Martin’s sister is aggressively friendly towards Erin in a way that I interpreted as sapphic. At one point, after they find a home for dog #3, Erin’s former BFF shows up on her doorstep (?????) begging to be let in. She insists that the fiance was also two-timing her, and she has proof that he had FIVE OTHER GIRLFRIENDS ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY - “that’s why he’s a traveling businessman”!!!! Erin never asks to see her proof, but I guess she believes her, because she lets her inside and then makes her take care of the remaining eight dogs out of spite. I guess they make up at some point. Anyway, somewhere in here Erin and Martin are starting to fall in love and also come up with a way to rebrand the business, so hooray for them. We also learn that the reason Martin hates dogs is that his beloved childhood dog, uh, ran away? Disappeared? Got eaten? He insists that “not knowing [what happened to him] was the worst part,” but I was out here expecting to see the child finding an actual dead dog like it’s John Wick or something so this was a little anticlimactic. They go on a business trip to New York talk with Important Japanese Investors, during which they fuck (it is? romantic? allegedly?), and then the morning of their meeting Erin’s shitty ex shows up in the hotel lobby to bother her. Martin decks him square in the face for not leaving her alone, and then someone calls the cops, because I guess this movie said ACAB, and both dudes get arrested and Erin has to do the presentation alone. And then in the last five minutes Martin gets out of jail and Erin says that she gave the presentation to the investors...in English, and their translator was twenty minutes late, and so the investors understood none of what she said. Thankfully we are spared actually seeing this “joke,” but they do play racist music over her explanation. Then Martin reconnects with his rich dad who bails out the company instead, and also he adopts the four remaining dogs. This movie was fucking bananas and very bad and I need more people to understand exactly how bad. Watch this movie.

A Nutcracker Christmas (2016): Amy Acker has two Christmas movies and this one seemed more palatable than Dear Santa, so here we are. I like to watch Amy Acker be cute and dance, and she has an adorable teenage niece in this movie that she’s helped raise. In this movie she’s a former ballet dancer whose sister (hilariously, one of the Wynonna Earp lesbians) died in a tragic car accident, and she never got to dance the part of the Sugarplum Fairy. Spoiler alert: she gets to by the end of the movie. Unfortunately the love interest is basically Satan incarnate and does not deserve her at all, so unless you like yelling at romantic leads I can’t really recommend it. 

Godmothered (2020): This movie is just, uh, Enchanted but worse, and also it should have been sapphic and it isn’t? Poor Jillian Bell is doing her best and is adorable, but it’s not enough to save this movie for me. If Disney were not cowards she would have fallen in love with single mom Isla Fisher. Oh, it also ends with the very white younger daughter doing a public cover of “Rise Up” by Andra Day that the audience joins in on, which, considering its use in the BLM movement the last couple years, felt, uh, not great to me.

A Christmas Prince (2017): It’s maybe not far to compare this to the rest of the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, because it was the originator. But also, it’s pretty boring. Sorry. Simon, or Fiddles (Fake Hiddles/Tom Hiddleston) is the best character.

Married by Christmas (2016): Apparently an alternate title for this is The Engagement Clause, which is sort of funny. Anyway, this has Jes Macallan and we, being big fans of Legends of Tomorrow, lost our shit when we found this on Christmas Day and had to watch it. The plot is that Jes’ character runs the family business, but their shitty grandma died and left a clause in her will where the business goes to the husband of whichever granddaughter gets married first. You would think that Jes’ sister and her fiance would postpone their Christmas Eve wedding to give Jes time to set up some kind of platonic wedding for business purposes, since Jes’ entire life is this stupid business, but nope, they immediately turn into monsters who are determined to get their hands on the business for ???? reasons???? It’s not very good, as you can tell by how low it is on the list. Jes Macallan is not a convincing straight businesswoman. I wouldn’t even really enjoy this movie as an Avalance AU.

A Princess for Christmas (2011): Here we are, the worst one Christmas movie I watched this year. I don’t actively harbor any ill will towards Katie McGrath, although I confess to feeling a bit “her?” but it’s fine. I was hoping this movie would enlighten me to her appeal. Instead, this movie actively got on my nerves in multiple ways, including trying to pass Katie McGrath off as a normal American retail worker instead of an Irish vampire/sorceress/supervillain/fairy/whatever she is. Her accent is shockingly awful, which I’m not sure is actually her fault, is there a reason her family wasn’t just British? That wouldn’t have saved the movie but it would have made it just slightly more palatable. At every turn it makes the worst choices, including a scene where Katie’s character puts on a rap song and she and the prince dance to it in an attempt to show them “loosening up,” and then the mean grandfather comes in and demands that they “turn this ghetto music off.” YIKES. I know these movies are the whitest movies ever by design but was that racism necessary? The only Black people I actually saw in this movie were some of the servants, I think? Speaking of the servants, at the end of the movie there’s a grand ball and Katie’s dress gets fucked up, and she’s about to leave the country, and then the servants are like “don’t go! We pooled our money to buy you another nice dress!” which, also yikes! This movie has a real classism problem. It also was so boring I zoned out of it multiple times, and I have sat through Manos: The Hands of Fate and Birdemic multiple times. This movie has no chaos whatsoever and I hated all the characters. 0/10 do not recommend under any circumstances.

[noctomania]

As Someone Who Didn’t Vote For 10 Years: Your Vote Matters.

Hey. So, let’s chat. Or rather, hear me out.

I turned 18 in 2006. I did not vote until 2016. Bc even I saw through my apathy & prioritized trying to combat potential fascism. You can get an idea of how many elections one sits out of over a 10yr span here. It’s a lot & I should have done my part much sooner. Though I could say “well I was in college from 2007-2012 & &&” no. Not an excuse. I had time no doubt. I was just apathetic. I have reflections for those who continue to abstain from their right & duty to vote.

I remember my parents encouraging me to register to vote. I think it was part of applying for my license or something. I can’t remember if I ever registered with a party, but I think in TX in order to vote you have to be registered with a party. In any case, since I’ve been registered in the north I haven’t been part of a party bc I too felt the whole thing was a sham. I was still remembering the robbery that was Bush’s terms. TWO WHOLE TERMS. I remember seeing my mom cry when he won his first term. I remember hearing about all the awful shit he was doing as president from my dad & stepmom.

But I also remember thinking: “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”

It can be incredibly disheartening & frustrating & downright angering to hear about atrocities without hearing about the forces fighting back. Death & Drama sells.

I wasn’t eligible to vote when bush was running. Then Obama came along & I was like “Great, surely my blue state I live in now is all for him & I don’t gotta bother - y'all got my order.”

Your. Vote. Matters.

Obama was an incredible victory. I will never allude to him ever being perfect bc he, just like every other president, has had to make tough decisions that do not always work out, or they make decisions you outright disagree with. He’s just part of the spectrum of what we’ve known, but he was the first Black president of a nation that was built & raised on destroying Native communities & enslaving Black people. That was & will remain significant. As you can imagine, during that time of not voting I also was not entirely involved in racial matters as much as I should have been despite what I was actively learning about in college. I sunk into apathy.

Apathy is a comfort not afforded to everyone. It is not an option for everyone as a means of survival. Were Black communities & of color to sink entirely into apathy they would be completely wiped out bc there are organized white supremacists who spend every waking hour trying to find new ways to attack in covert & not-so-covert ways - voter suppression, intimidation, manipulation, propaganda. Apathy is a privilege. A white privilege that even a kid raised on free lunches at school & hand-me-downs from neighbors could afford.

Your. Vote. Matters.

Let’s talk symbolism. “My refusal to vote is symbolic of my disgust with how this nation is run, how our elections are corrupt, to show my hatred of the electoral college, my vote doesn’t matter anyway bc ...”

You’re right. Your vote is symbolic. But not for what you think.

When you don’t vote, that is like not replying to a message. The nation poses a question to all voters: Who do you want to represent you? If you don’t reply to the email, your input isn’t counted at all. There is no footnote to say “I didn’t vote bc of such-and-such reason.” You might have been unconscious. You might have forgotten. You might have not cared. You might care very much.

But there is literally no job in the entire election process who’s responsibility is to sit in an office & contemplate why Jared in Oklahoma didn’t cast a vote.

“Gee, I sure hope Jared is ok. Is he mad at us? I guess he might want change...”

No. The way you show that you are not happy with how things are going is to vote. THAT is how you send the sentiment of “Hey so this isn’t great I’d like to try moving this way.” But we can’t really make progress without continuing to push. Even when things look like they’re going well (”Hey, we got a Black guy in office, we’re doing great with the racism stuff!”) you gotta keep pushing - which is why you need to be able to realize the ones you do vote for need to be criticized as well. Obviously, there will be myths & the ones about Obama probably hit a record tally on that with how angry a Black person as president made the racists in this country feel, but there are valid criticisms as well that should not be overlooked if we want to know how to push for a better tomorrow, or to avoid accidentally electing a new nightmare bc you aren’t getting immediate results from who you thought was going to change the world. It’s a lot to put on one president. It would take multiple terms, beyond 2, to really see a shift considering they may be combating an opposing congress or supreme court. 

The only reason your vote matters is because it is symbolic. If we all had esp we wouldn’t need to vote. Writing on a form that looks different depending on where you are yet all cumulatively results in the tallying for ONE election is entirely symbolic. That’s not an argument against voting, it’s proof as to why you should vote. Symbolism is not without consequence. Look at every book-burning that has ever happened. Our ideas are symbolic until they are put into practice. Your vote is your idea. We can’t read your mind. And the government isn’t reading your blog being like “GiantD0ngB0ng really said it best when they said ‘Fuck politicians’. That really change our perspective on how we had been running this nation. You’re right GiantD0ngB0ng, you’re right.”

If we had elected Hillary after Obama, we wouldn’t be so fucking bad with corona bc she wouldn’t have dismembered the pandemic response Obama had built due to swine flu, we wouldn’t be nearly as worried about ACA, we would still absolutely have criticisms bc no matter Woman, Black, Hispanic, Immigrant, Trans, Disabled, Homeless, or any combination of intersection of minorities, nobody is perfect. Nobody knows all the answers. Thus a decentralized government model that will only remain anywhere near as such if we stop letting fascists & bad faith actors get power by using our symbolic vote to say no.

Most everyone HATES group projects. I certainly do. If any people enjoy them, there are still likely aspects of it that rub them the wrong way like having a partner that doesn’t contribute. Guess what.

Elections are group projects.

I believe it was EvelynFromTheInternets who made me realize that, & echoes much of the same sentiment I have written in this.

And at 5:55 she says: What Are You Going To Do On November 4th bc We Are Still Fighting For Suffrage. We have to keep pushing & working towards a better tomorrow, today. None of it will amount to much if people are not voting. You can campaign & fundraising & educate all you want. But if people don’t vote it’s all for nothing. You need both.

“ As of June 2020, the United States had the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide, with more than 2.12 million people in prison “ This is absolutely part of the bigger problem & yet another way people have been disheartened. It’s on purpose. They don’t want disenfranchised communities to be able to vote. So we - those of us who don’t have to wait in lines for hours, those of us who don’t face racial violence, those of us who can choose apathy & laziness for a decade with little to no personal consequence - must vote symbolically for them.

If you want your vote to mean something then vote for them. Vote for the people who are still ineligible to vote even though they aren’t in prison anymore. Vote for the people who despite working more than you do, harder than you do, for less than you do, still have to pay taxes & still denied the right to vote. Vote for the people who can’t vote bc police murdered them. Vote for the people who wait 10 hours in line to vote & are turned away when they finally get to the front of the line. Vote for those who don’t have the right to relinquish in the first place. Hell you can even vote for those who do vote anyway but have been misled by propaganda. Bc if you don’t, eventually we all will sink. You may be in the upper class of the titanic but in the end the whole ship is going down & you may just have the opportunity to slowly freeze out in the dark ocean on a lifeboat with all your rich strangers with the slim chance at survival rather than swallowed immediately by the sea like those who were locked in the lower levels to keep them from access to rescue.

At 7:24 Evelyn hits another really important part that I think drives my whole point home: as a Black woman her actual life, & those who share her experience, is on the line constantly in this country & much of this world. It is not entirely as symbolic to some people as it is to the more privileged populations.

Sure, your vote is symbolic, & sure you not voting is absolutely symbolic. But the only thing not voting is symbolic of is your apathy, your own privilege to choose that & think you’ll be fine & that it’s other people who need to “wake up”. No babe, it’s you. Wake up to the wider consequences of symbolic gestures.

Your vote matters whether it’s electoral college or popular vote. Your vote matters to getting closer to an admin that will enable popular vote as the determinant & eradicate the electoral college. Your vote matters whether you’re in a “blue” state or a “red” state or a battleground state. A state is only red or blue until it’s not. I come from TX I know about that shit. The only reason “battleground” states are a focus is bc they fluctuate more often than others, that doesn’t make others ineligible to change. Your vote matters bc you may be only a portion of the overall grade, but the overall grade affects everyone. It will impact others more harshly than you.

Your Vote Matters.

I want to add one last note: voting doesn’t happen once every 4 years, & it’s never JUST about president. If you don’t go vote at all, you are neglecting the more local stuff as well which is what affects the bigger elections. If all you do during a group project is read one line during the presentation in class, the grade will reflect you lack of effort elsewhere throughout the project. If I showed up & only voted for president & nothing else it would be for nothing. Racist & bigoted GOP will vote all red all the time up & down ballot. It’s not about age either. If your vote didn’t matter then they wouldn’t sink so much money & effort into trying to prevent people from doing it.

[ais-n]

1 | more like apologise for how harmful it was? how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh. and i say this as someone who has read the books twice. first time i didn't see what i saw the second time. i think you genuinely wanted to have people of colour representation but it's very racist to me how hsin and emilio were done. constantly called "exotic" which is a thing americans like to use so much when it's not their ethnicity.

Hi! Thanks for the detailed explanation, I appreciate it! At first I had such HIGH HOPES I could reply to all three of your asks in one place but it turns out I talked too much (go figure lol) So I’m going to do then one at a time. I did want to start out replying to one offhand comment in the 3rd ask and then I’ll get into the rest. Below is what I had written before I realized I need to split it into three and then edited out saying I’m answering all at once. For anyone who hasn’t seen all three asks yet, that’s why part of what I’m talking about isn’t represented above - anon, hopefully it makes more sense to you since you know the future right now from what you had written in the past. ....wow, I made that confusing.

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Thank you for the explanation! I appreciate you too! Also you made me laugh out loud at the gay comment, so thank you for that XD You are not making me feel worse; I appreciate the courage you no doubt had to pull together to post this :) I could be wrong but if I imagine myself in your place, I imagine feeling a little scared or intimidated to post and yet feeling it is necessary. I think it’s really cool you were able to post this in such a thoughtful explanation. Thank you!

In order to not overwhelm anyone’s inbox - and to make it easier for you - I put these all together in one ask. [[[EDIT: JUST KIDDING I talk too much - this is answering stuff from each ask at a time, sorry. I put it behind a cut to make it less long on people’s dashboards.]]] 

Still, I imagine with so much I want to talk about at once, I will probably miss things so let me know if I miss something you really wanted to talk about or you wanted follow up on something in particular.

Anyway READ MORE BELOW for a probably stupidly long reply lol Just, knowing me at least….

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Hi welcome to the below deck party! I don’t know why I said it that way. That was creepy sorry lol Anyway I’m breaking this up a little bit but the more I think about it the more I think this probably really can’t address everything properly in one place. So, again, seriously just let me know if you want follow up on anything - or if anyone does, for that matter. I’m not doing this quite in order though.

RACE: 

Yeah actually, I agree that “exotic” is pretty ??? terminology to be using tbh. I don’t imagine I would use that wording if I were writing something today and if we were to edit the series now, I’d remove it. I don’t remember the context, to be honest; whether it was only used in narration or if it was used in dialogue too. Dialogue might stay, if it’s to show a person speaks a certain way and has certain views on life, but I’d personally probably change that in narration unless it had a specific reason for being there. Which my very vague memories combined with your comment make me think probably not?

In regards to Hsin/Emilio plus even terminology like ‘exotic’ or whatever being used - so, upfront, I need you to know this whole post is not an excuse or etc. It’s just an explanation. 

I didn’t write Hsin or Emilio, so I honestly can’t speak for or about them. I would like to be able to give you some insight into “Sonny’s” background and his friends and family he said he was inspired by in writing them, or give you insight into Alicia’s background (as she is a person of color, at least I was always told she is), but I truly don’t even know what was a lie and what was truth anymore. He always told me his characters like Hsin and Emilio were based pretty directly on people he knew - well, Emilio in particular was hugely based on a cousin of his. But that cousin didn’t exist, it turns out, or at least not in the way I knew. We wrote our own characters and were in charge of their own stories, although we also co-wrote the series as a whole and had input on the plot and etc. But I never really dealt directly with Emilio or Hsin in the writing of them other than how my characters interacted with “his” characters.

I can’t speak on behalf of anyone so I honestly can’t say if Emilio and/or Hsin are concerning or not concerning portraitures of any demographic. I really feel that such a determination has to be up to each reader. I say that in part because I’ve heard over the years that people actually appreciated the way they were written, for various reasons, and some of the people saying that were from demographics that the characters represented. But that also doesn’t mean it has to be something across the board; that because one person feels a certain way, everyone else whether in or out of that demographic has to agree. Quite the opposite, really.

I wish I could even say something like “I know Sonny did a lot of research on xyz specific topic because we talked about abc in regards to it” but I can’t. I know we had those conversations but I don’t know if anything I was told is true. What I can say is the series was written basically 15 years ago. Or rather, started around 15 years ago, then written on/off over multiple years. And we started it essentially in the same vein as BL fanfic, just sort of as a fun thing to do on our off time without any initial plan to ever publicly share it. The good thing about humans and culture is we change as we grow, and there are many things we can continue to gain understanding of as we go. 

One of the really good things about the last 15 years is it’s become more and more accessible to learn about the world and its people. When we started ICoS, for example, Google streetview wasn’t a thing. In order to try to be accurate about something like the streets of a particular city, we either had to totally make shit up and say the war changed everything in that town or I had to try to track down a paper map of it and hope nothing had changed significantly since then. 

Slowly over the years, the globalization of information expanded. Over time, all the little details I didn’t know to even question became things I could find easily. Like, do they say W Something St or Something St W? Is it Avenue Blah or Blah Avenue? Do they even use terminology like avenue or streets? Do they commonly have alleyways everywhere or anywhere and if so how big are they? What are the roads made of? What is the lighting like? Are there basements? 

I grew up in Midwest USA on the tail end of tornado alley where a basement is an absolute must. Imagine my absolute confusion when I learned there are houses out there where they DON’T go underground. Like, at all. wtf??? From my, at that time obviously limited, experience, the only people I personally knew who didn’t have some sort of underground space were apartment dwellers or my friend who lived in the mobile home park. It was such a staple understanding in my life to assume everyone had a basement in their home that I had no idea to even question the existence of such a thing when trying to write another location within the US, let alone anywhere else in the world. And at a certain point when we were writing it, I didn’t even know to ask certain questions, or if I did I didn’t have an easy way of finding it.

If you were to read the very, very original version of Evenfall and compare it to what’s most recently released, for example, there are many differences. One example of something you might notice is the streets are totally different in Monterrey. That’s because we had to make up streets the first time around because I could not find any maps for the city. I tried but they just weren’t accessible for whatever reason; not in the detail I needed and where I could find them, or probably afford. We had to just be like “Welp, guess the war changed it all, sry!” to explain the random names and structure. But as the years passed, information spread to a minute level across the world slowly but surely. First, Google eventually had the layout of the city streets, then it had satellite imagery, then it had Google streetview, then it had people randomly uploading photos to locations, and so on. Eventually, there was enough information from big to small to feel relatively sure we could at least somewhat accurately represent the geography - not perfectly, absolutely not because we’d never been there - but an approximation that hopefully wouldn’t be too jarring for someone actually able to visit, themselves.

You may wonder why the hell I’m talking about streets in Mexico when your comment was on Hsin’s and Emilio’s characterizations, but I mention it because I look at a lot of things in writing with that same level of paranoia of wanting all the details possible to write it to try to be as accurate to at least someone’s reality as possible. That’s one reason why I haven’t written Domino, for example, which focuses on Vivienne’s life; it probably seems like it should be easy to do, and in ways it is. But I don’t feel nearly educated enough on how it would be to grow up in France in a rural then urban area with the sort of pressures she had as a young woman and with her different levels of wealth and the way she looked and etc etc to be fair to anyone who may find representation within that and to not accidentally jar them totally out of the experience by the equivalent of randomly throwing a basement in the middle of Texas because who the fuck knew Texans don’t automatically have basements in all their homes?? 

Really, with anything, there is always room for improvement - especially with anything as complex as any aspect of any demographic which inherently then serves as some form of representation for a huge variety of human beings. Humans, being complex beings themselves, will thus have an even larger variety in the way any topic can be seen. What is severely off-putting to one person might be acceptable to another. Sometimes society steps in and is like nah bro, idgaf if you’re cool with that, I’m not. And sometimes it remains so complex that it’s hard to give one exact answer.

What we tried to do was listen to feedback as we wrote and take it into account in the writing of the series itself. Also, especially later in the series, whenever possible we tried to do research as much as possible on whatever detail or topic we had going on to try to be as accurate as possible.

I’m truly not trying to skirt any sort of issue, I just don’t think I can properly say a singular reply to your concern without being unfair to different voices I’ve heard on this topic over the years. If I had never heard directly or indirectly from people that they specifically appreciate the representation of the characters, if in fact I had only ever heard concerns about them, it would be easier to say we were wrong. But I’m not part of any of the demographics so I can’t speak on behalf of any of them. Thus, I can only listen to what different people tell me, and know that regardless of what I’m told, for them that is truth and thus I respect it.

What I will say is it certainly was not the intention to upset, insult, alienate, or otherwise cause concern for anyone reading the series for anything other than the actual things intended to be fucked up like the things the characters went through and so on. I’m very sorry that the characterization is so upsetting and concerning for you. That really sucks; it takes away from the point of the story and puts you in a place that is deeply uncomfortable. I’m very sorry we put you in that position.

++

RELATIONSHIPS

Actually, I’d love to hear more what you mean by your comment. I have certain inferences I make based on what I think you mean but I don’t want to misinterpret and misrepresent your concerns.

The way I interpret “how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh.” is maybe related to the idea of dominance vs submission? Like making an equivalence of that to masculine = dominant = power/strength = top = Hsin, and feminine = submissive = weakness = bottom = Boyd? Is that what you’re suggesting or did you mean something else? I have a lot of thoughts on this subject but, again, I don’t want to ramble on a tangent if I am totally misunderstanding what you meant. Especially since I rambled so much above.

So if you’d like to explore the topic more and would like thoughts/answers/etc just let me know in another anon ask more specifically what you mean, if you can. Thank you :)

I’ll go onto ask 2 for now - I forgot exactly what came up in that ask vs the 3rd ask so I’m not sure how long it will take me to type up a reply. Just in case I don’t finish it today, I wanted to sign this off in the meantime with I hope you’re staying healthy and safe!

[random-slytherin-opinions]

Salazar Slytherin wasn’t a Pureblood fanatic, and here’s why.

This may seem like a bit of a stretch but bear with me here. Spoilers lay ahead for Harry Potter lore in general and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets specifically. You have been warned. 

We as Potterheads are taught to believe that all of that “pure-blood stuff” (as Ron puts it in HPCOS) started with Salazar Slytherin. In fact, we have been led to believe that he hated muggles and muggleborns simply because he felt that only purebloods should attend the school. That may be how things turned out, that people who followed him became supremacist, racist, bigoted, etc. But are we to believe that Salazar Slytherin was also a Seer and knew what his actions would do, and where the world was heading? I think not. Three facts about the Potter world and HPCOS lend me to believe that blood supremacy was not his main goal. 

3. The Chamber could only be opened by his heir. Not just any wizard, pureblood or not, could open the chamber. Presumably Salazar would have passed on instructions to his heir, told them what to do with the Chamber, how to open it, what to command the Basilisk to do. If Salazar Slytherin has an heir centuries after his death then surely he had one just a generation after Hogwarts was built. And yet there are only two recorded accounts of the Chamber being opened, both by Tom Riddle. For Salazar Slytherin, as we’ll see in the last point, it was more about what family you were from and less about how pure your blood was. He knew the other founders didn’t share his view so he could only hope to influence his own progeny. 

2. Tom Riddle may have, through a happenstance of fate, been the only heir of Slytherin willing to do the research and the leg work to use the Chamber. He was also not instructed by Salazar Slytherin, not in the way one would assume his own child and direct heir would have been. Tom was not a pureblood himself, though he hated that about himself, and was in fact such a distant descendant that no one had made the connection besides him. 

So in the end it was a half-blood with delusions of grandeur that opened the Chamber, not a pureblood heir to a powerful wizarding house. Draco Malfoy, as Harry and Ron were quick to point out, is a more obvious choice, but even a paragon of Pureblood breeding was not the foretold heir of the mighty Slytherin. So in the end pure blood and magical breeding had no bearing on who could open the Chamber, only lineage. It is possible that Salazar Slytherin never imagined his own line intermingling with muggles, but I don’t think that was the case. I think he was banking on a legacy of knowledge passed down from him to his descendants. 

1. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione asks Professor Bins, the History of Magic teacher, about the Chamber of Secrets. When he finally shares the story of the Chamber he first shares the story of the founding of Hogwarts. 

“’You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago- the precise date is uncertain- by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school Houses are named after them: Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.’

He paused, gazed blearily around the room, and continued.

‘For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magical families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school.’“ (pg. 150)

Let’s really look at this for a moment. Hogwarts was built to be a safe place for magical children to grow and learn without being killed by muggles. This is obviously an allusion to a witch trial of sorts and muggles were the ones killing witches and wizards. It seems reasonable then to assume that witches and wizards had reason to fear muggles, even going to far as to separate themselves completely AND build a special school to keep their children safe. Slytherin is concerned about letting in the children of muggles because, and this is just my opinion, those children would return home to their muggle parents and perhaps reveal magical secrets, or give the names of their classmates, even innocently. If Hogwarts was built to keep magical children safe, inviting in potential spies seems risky. The Founders had no way of knowing how things would turn out in the future, they had no way of knowing that a muggleborn child wouldn’t accidentally expose a fellow student, even unknowingly. 

It says that the founders worked in harmony for a time and then things changed. Is it possible something happened, something not mentioned, that would make Slytherin weary of muggleborn children? Perhaps one of them was untrustworthy, as was his fear, and he was simply hoping to be cautious. Nowhere in this narrative does Professor Bins say that Slytherin only wanted children from all-magic families because he thought they were superior only that he thought they were more trustworthy and in that highly dangerous time, I think his caution is understandable. 

All of this to say, even if Salazar Slytherin was not a blood supremacist, and I don’t believe he was, he definitely inspired them. We have seen before how time can change the context of something, twist it and bend it to fit myth and legend, erasing parts of the truth and rewriting it to better fit what is already thought to be true. His caution, self-preservation, is what inspired his words not racism. Tom Riddle twisted that, and so did the other founders and their ilk who were predisposed to dislike Slytherin because of a centuries old falling out. We see from the first book that Gryffindor’s, and the other houses, are trained to dislike Slytherin’s by rote with little thought to the individuals themselves who have no choice but to be sorted into that house. If anything the prejudice is stronger against Slytherins with notable exceptions in very few characters. 

JKR I’m not sure I trust you with my house anymore, you’ve made some strange statements, and seem unaware of the damage. 

Final reminder, Harry Potter was almost a Slytherin. He CHOSE Gryffindor, but the hat wanted to place him in Slytherin. Never forget. 

[sophygurl]

WisCon 43 panel Learning to Hear the Dog Whistle

[Just wanted to say this was one of the panels I suggested and I’m so glad it went through and that I was able to make it to the panel. This is something so many of us need to work on, and I’ve made it a practice to point out when I think someone has unwittingly passed on a dog whistle-ish message, in large part because I hope/want for others to do the same for me when and if I do it, myself. Anyway, I learned a lot and this panel was really good.]

Political dog whistles are meant specifically to target one audience who agrees with you, and perhaps to trick others into agreeing with your subtle and covert language. It's important for us to be able to recognize these dog whistles, often used by racist, transphobic, and other bigoted groups. How do we learn to listen for and recognize these whistles when they are used specifically to dodge our ears?

Moderator: Heidi Waterhouse. Panelists: Seth Frost, Keffy R. M. Kehrli

Disclaimers: These are only the notes I was personally able to jot down on paper during the panel. I absolutely did not get everything, and may even have some things wrong. Corrections by panelists or other audience members always welcome. I name the mod and panelists because they are publicly listed, but will remove/change names if asked. I do not name audience members unless specifically asked by them to be named. If I mix up a pronouns or name spelling or anything else, please tell me and I’ll fix it! 

Notes:

Heidi started the panel off saying that the panel was obviously not full of all kinds of representation (example: the panelists were all white), so they were going to miss some stuff. The hope was that they could impart more generally how to recognize dog whistles. [They also had a lot of audience additions later on]

She also said that when we talked about racism and antisemitism, etc. - we’re talking about a set of behaviors vs. individual people. She suggests giving someone a chance to walk back a dog whistle you’ve just heard them use and asking them if they know what they’ve just said.

Seth said he knows more white supremacy dog whistles than even he’s comfortable with, and he points them out whenever he sees them.

Keffy doesn’t know as many as he’d like, but he lives on social media and finds it important to recognize them whenever possible.

Heidi took a moment to define dog whistles - intentionally coded language meant to be covertly used within a group or community. For example: “interested in ethnic heritage” ~might~ mean someone is really into their Scottish heritage and actually eats haggis on purpose, but it also might mean they’re a white supremacist. 

Seth used an example of a time the host of a TV show he was watching had a spider web tattoo on his elbow - without context he didn’t know if it meant the host just really thought spiders were cool or if he was a white supremacist. For context, Seth would have needed to see other tattoos, or what his political affiliations were, etc. Another example is Norse stuff, which can be totally innocuous, but is also something white supremacists are co-opting. 

Keffy brought up seeing the number 88 on people’s user names - it might mean they were born in the year 1988, or it could be a white supremacist signifier. 

Seth added that many Nazi’s are not smart. They use this “bullshit numerology” where 88 = HH = Hitler. However, 88 is also a lucky number in Chinese traditions, so that’s another example of something being used in multiple ways and not knowing without context how someone is using it.

Seth also talked about the 14 words - a white supremacist mission statement. So “14 words” or even just the number 14 can be a white supremacist dog whistle.

Heidi brought up the fact that we’re using dog whistle in it’s negative sense, but all in-group communities have their own language they use to recognize one another. 

One example Heidi noticed was a show Forged in Fire about blacksmiths. A lot of them wore Thor stuff due to that connection, but slowly over time less and less of them continued to wear Thor-themed things as they’d had it pointed out to them how white supremacists were using those symbols.

Keffy talked about one way to notice if something is being used as a dog whistle or not is to pay attention to who shows up when you see it. When, for example, TERFs swarm to a post using specific language, it’s time to look up the terms used and understand how they’re being used. 

Keffy explained what TERF meant, and used scare-quotes around “radical feminist” because he doesn’t see them as being particularly feminist or radical - especially not in the sense it was used in the 80′s. [yup]

Keffy also mentioned the use of pattern matching. If someone is using XX or XY in their bio - well, that’s not bad in and of itself, but if you take a moment to look at their page and you see them harassing a lot of trans people, then you have your answer.

Seth added that watching how they interact with others can be important. If you think they’ve used a dog whistle but aren’t sure, it’s okay to put some distance between you and them to just observe who they’re interacting with and how. 

Keffy said it can be important to have friends from many different groups, and if someone tells you that something is harmful to them - listen and believe them. We often learn by being told after accidentally reblogging or retweeting something, and that’s okay. You just have to believe that people know better about their own oppressions. 

Heidi talked about how bigots were using the triple parenthesis around names of Jewish people to mark them on twitter - some Jewish people and allies started to use the triple parenthesis for themselves intentionally as a sort of “I am Spartacus” protest. There was a big discussion about this in regards to reclaiming vs. causing harm due to generational trauma. It was important, in that instance, to listen to the Jewish people whose trauma was being triggered, and to believe them about not doing this.

Keffy added that he stopped retweeting as much from people who were using it because his followers had told him it was a trigger for them. 

Seth said, as a Jew and trans person, “If I ask you to stop using a hurtful thing, that’s a big show of trust”, so he thinks about that when people come to him in a similar manner. 

Heidi posed the question of having scripts for when we call out our friends, or when it’s time to ping an ally to help us out.

Keffy said he’s not that organized to have a script, but he does have some friends that he’s asked to take over. Gave an example of taking T and shifting pronouns, had a friend with a more masculine sounding voice call the pharmacy to ask about it first due to concerns about not being taken seriously.

Keffy also talked about the term calling in, rather than calling out, which is a more personal and quiet approach. He’ll usually DM someone or talk to them privately about these things - unless the discussion has already spiraled out in public.

Seth also said he doesn’t have a script for this, but in person he’ll usually just comment with something like “oh that’s gross” and if asked why, he’ll explain with as few words as possible. 

Heidi agreed, saying that person is probably freaking out internally, and won’t hear a lengthy response anyway.

Keffy said no matter how long he’s been working on social justice stuff, when he’s called out/in, he still feels shame or defensiveness or both. It can take time to work through that, so expecting a full discussion right away might not be realistic.

Keffy also advised that if you ask an ally to do this for you, make sure they’re actually getting the right point across.

Heidi shifted the conversation to how to support people being targeted. The first step is to believe them when they tell you something. The point of these dog whistles is to seem like they aren’t a big deal, when they are. 

Seth agreed, saying they throw just that much doubt about how they’re being used, so that people aren’t sure if it’s something bad or not. He advised defaulting to at least a base level of politeness when asked to stop using something - you can just stop. 

Keffy gave an example of “drinking the kool-aid” to refer to something being cult-like. Keffy gave some background on the phrase coming from what happened in Jonestown. The leader was very abusive and he did dry runs of giving his followers laced drinks. They were punished and even killed if they didn’t drink it, which made it safer for them to assume it was fake again and to just drink it. Knowing all of this, we can see that no one was really consenting to drinking the laced drinks. Hundreds of people died, and their family members and loved ones can be very triggered by the callous and casual use of this phrase popping up in what seems like otherwise-innocuous instances. 

Heidi gave another example - death marches. These kinds of phrases are used so commonly that we sometimes forget, or don’t even initially know, the history of them or the gravity of that history. 

Seth talked about the trouble with hearing dog whistles when other people don’t. It can be very isolating to have other people saying “no I don’t hear anything.”

Heidi said a panel like this could easily become a “you’re not aware/angry/anxious enough” discussion, but really the world expands more when we learn more about it. 

Seth talked about the main stream media often using antisemitic language that they may or may not be aware of, or mean. Examples: coastal elites, bankers. Keffy added that it’s gotten to the point where if he hears George Soros’s name brought up, he just stops listening. [RIGHT?!]

Heidi put it to the audience to give more dog whistle examples for us to be aware of.

One audience member talked about the “from (whichever city is nearest)” being code for black, poor, and violent. It was pointed out that Chicago is used as code for this nationwide. 

Another audience member talked about Reagan’s “welfare queen” mythology that was put together on purpose and is still ongoing today.

Someone else in the audience asked how to tell if someone is trying to recruit you as an ally or just accidentally passing on a dog whistle they weren’t aware of.

Heidi advised looking for other clues in their language and interactions. Keffy added that this is why dog whistles are so insidious. The welfare queen myth became a meme that people began to believe in. So if you explain the history and context of it’s origins and watch how people respond to it - bigots often respond to these sorts of things by telling on themselves. You can tell in the reaction how they meant it once it’s pointed out to them.

An audience member gave another example  - the peanut gallery. It has racist origins due to segregation - black people had to sit in the balconies and the myth was that they were unruly and tossing peanuts into the theater.

Another audience member talked about “urban” being used as code for black people in a negative sense. This audience member is a white teacher of mostly non-white students and urban can be used professionally as just a definition but she has to be careful about usage due to it’s other association.

Someone else in the audience talked about intelligence, but I missed most of what they said about it. 

Keffy added on to that, by adding that IQ is just racist, and if it’s not being used to be racist, well then it’s still ableist so it’s still wrong. [good points]

An audience member talked about how eugenics is used as a dog whistle for “less intelligent people shouldn’t breed.” 

Another audience member talked about gas stations and other places often owned by immigrants proudly displaying signs saying “American owned”. This is code for saying “this is the white gas station” for racists and xenophobes. 

Someone else in the audience brought up the issue of faux dog whistles, such as the ok symbol. Another audience member replied that the problem is that they become associated with the bigotry anyway. 

Seth added that everything is made up at some point or another. 

Keffy expanded on that by saying the problem with “just for lulz” dog whistles is that this is how white supremacists recruit a lot of teens and young adults. It might not initially mean what it comes to mean, but it draws people in, which is the point of it.

An audience member brought up the dog whistles of merit, merit-based, and meritocracy - a commentary on reverse racism and affirmative action. 

Keffy talked about commentary in science fiction genres about how there’s no more fun adventure stories because of all of these serious issues and social justice inclusion - codes for bigotry.

Heidi discussed ableism and how lots of times people just don’t know they’re using ableist language, but other times it’s done on purpose as gatekeeping. One example was putting “athletic” as what someone is looking for in a dating profile. Keffy added that you could do a whole panel on dog whistles in dating profiles.

Seth offered the example of people referencing Idiocracy as a dog whistle for eugenics. 

An audience member brought up people talking about dueling accommodations - which is a real thing - but it’s often used to say that we shouldn’t even bother trying to accommodate people. Also gatekeeping through issues like service animals, claiming people aren’t “disabled enough” to use them, etc.

Keffy complained about things like signs saying “be healthy, use the stairs”.

An audience member talked about people casually claiming they have OCD or ADHD when it’s not true.

Heidi asked the panelists and audience to consider some transphobic dog whistles and gave the example “real women.”. 

Seth said when people put “bio female” or “Webster’s dictionary defines womanhood as....” (which by the way isn’t even what Webster’s says but whatever). 

Heidi talked about cis women even being attacked for seeming trans - both sides of the political spectrum tend to do this one. 

Heidi also talked about fatphobia used in this way, such as making fat jokes about Trump - but that hurts all fat people. 

Keffy brought up people who claim that cis is a slur.

I raised my hand from the audience to bring up people claiming queer is a slur as a way of excluding lots of groups beyond gay and lesbian, like trans people and asexual people. Keffy added that this is an effective dog whistle because it sounds social justice-y. Keffy also talked about “get the L out” - lesbians wanting their own group outside of the queer community.

Seth added the phrase “gender critical” as another one that sounds on the surface like a good thing, but is used by TERFs. 

Keffy said they often tweak and claim terms that trans and non-binary people use to make fun of them or take power away from them.

An audience member brought up people using respect as a key-word to keep minorities from being angry and standing up for themselves.

Heidi brought up racist school dress codes, and asked people to add more dog whistles to the panel’s # -  #HearTheDogWhistle. It’s a process to learn these things.

Seth closed by saying if someone tells you a thing is problematic - stop. Do some research. Even if it turns out you disagree with them in the end, it doesn’t hurt to stop and find out more. Respect other people.