#like the type were I am just really admiring the subculture

[lgalacticjayl]

Having a lot of goth thoughts tonight

[punkeropercyjackson]

this person is literally a fucking maniac I’m so sorry they did that shit to you??? It’s headcanons and you didn’t even mention anything remotely offensive or required whatever shit they were spitting. Fucking SUICIDE BAITING OVER WHAT?? Dios mío. (to get your mind off it if you would like, share with me your favourite punk percy headcanons)

RIGHT LIKE THAT NIGGA REALLY SHOWED ME NOOSE PICS OVER FUCKING PERCY JACKSON💀And said i was 'fetishizing' trans people as if i'm not trans myself and as if she's not a cis woman and probably straight too.Stop projecting come mierda♡

But tysm,i will and you choose a good time to ask because i've been finally continouing my punk history research!!

Always had the punk mindset as seen in canon since she's anti-authority,rebels against all corruption she sees and protects and is extremely loving towards younger minorities

But was too poor to afford the clothes and piercings and such.Didn't bother him though since he cared more about acting punk than looking it

Thalia was his first real experience with the subculture headon and that's why he admired and was lowkey jealous of her along with a bit of gender envy

Goes to protests and does charity work with Rachel

And she bought him a bunch of punk stuff(from punk bussiness ofc,otherwise what's the point)

Learned to diy so many things it's gonna be a running in my fics of her

Rrrrt girl and Mcr fan-Also not punk but loves Ice Spice and Megan Thee Stallion too ofc.Really likes Green Day too!!

The specific types of punk Percy is are afropunk(because i hc them as half afro-dominican and half black-greek),seapunk(NOT because of Poseidon but because of Sally)and either crustpunk or pastel punk depending on wether we're talking her as transfem bigender and a mix of masc and fem or her as a super femme trans woman.Not for gender roles reasons because that would be ridiculous but i think just that their lives would be significantly different so that leads to a few differences in their tastes

Persephone Amelia has comics!Starfire hair,Perseo Isadore has dreads

Straight edge

His autism definitely contributes to how he approches punkness

Their patches jacket has spikes and frills around the collar and the patches are the dominican and trans flags and a black mermaid to represent Sally,a skull and a yellow diamond to represent Nico and Hazel and he has a god handful of pins but his favorites are the Riptide one Lex made him and the cat one(Yes i'm including my Pjo self-insert in this because i couldn't help myself)

Goes on estrogen but only a light dosage and for a short time compared to full transitions and gets no surgeries.Wears makeup too and gets a tongue ring,an eyebrow piercing and forward helix on both ears

Radicalized Nico and Hazel,who are now goth punk and pastel goth punk

Exclusively buys video games and consoles secondhand because of being anti-capitalism

Killed Luke in TLO not only because of being the hero of the prophecy but also because no actual punk wouldn't unalive a fascist who's also a serial ped0phile the second they got the chance.He made sure it was extra painful too and even had Nico use his soul erasing power we saw in BOO on him

And eventually manages to kill Poseidon too-Idk about Perseo but Persephone exists in my Pjo x DC x Spiderverse crossover where she's got kryptonian heritage and i headcanon krytonians are on the same levels of gods in regards to power so that's how.Zeus is too scared of Percy afterwards to stop her from fixing the greek myths world system LMFAOOOOOO

And for a lil more Perlex because i am down horrendous,him and Lex punk4punk but Lex is pastel punk and solarpunk!!They go on punk themed dates like going to concerts in matching outfits and defacing public property together <3 Also Percy has the cocky flirt punk guy thing you usually see in male characters who are but it's a Lex exclusive

[gemjupiter]

Gemini: A Love Letter

This was inspired by this dreamwidth post about Hoshi of Seventeen, in which they briefly mentioned that it’s frustrating to see him be reduced to a chaotic gemini stereotype because of his birth chart and as a fellow gemini stellium haver myself let’s talk about gemini (i hope op will forgive me for blatantly ripping quotes from their manifesto but they illustrate my point perfectly) 

Gemini is seen in general by people who are not balls deep in astrology as chaotic, two faced, annoying, and like the epitome of the “mean girl” i remember being 13 sending my friends astrology instagram posts and jumping on the gemini hate bandwagon for all these reasons which aren’t actually super true of gemini placements. So what do i think is true about gemini placements? This can be boiled down into two categories: information and connection. 

Information 

This may seem slightly out of left field but i wanna talk about the “two faced” stereotype in this section because i think it’s a fantastic example of gemini’s tendency to pick up on a lot of information being misconstrued.

My little sister is a gemini sun and it has always been fascinating to me to watch her reinvent herself at the drop of a hat. In the span of a week I watched her decide she wanted to be an egirl, learn everything she could about the ‘subculture’, start dressing and acting the way she’d seen, decide she wanted to be a vsco girl instead and repeat the process. It is truly something to behold the speed at which gemini can learn a bunch about a topic, drop it and move onto the next one, and the way gemini suns especially combine this with how they present themselves to the world. 

Gemini’s are just constantly acting on and implementing new information into their lives. I think about how in Hit The Road Jun from Seventeen talked about the parts of the other members that he admires and tries to imitate and it’s just such a classic gemini move. 

So why aren’t gemini’s typically pegged as an intelligent sign by the general public the way that say virgo is? Because above all else what gemini really values is connection and communication 

Connection 

This is really the crux of my hot take, love is stored in the gemini. All gemini wants is to know and be known, the mortifying ordeal of being known and I think we as a society should start letting them reap the rewards of being loved! 

Of course in practise most people love gemini’s, the number of undebatable icons in the famous gemini’s club (marilyn monroe, morgan freeman, bob dylan, naomi campbell, hyuna, ailee, dawn, yves, prince) wendy williams was talking about gemini’s when she said “she’s got a point, she’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment”. But what I really wanna talk about is all the love gemini’s have to give. 

“You know how huge this world is? Amongst everyone, the land, the vast endless space of the universe...the fact that we were able to cross paths, this connection...is it destiny? I think that the time we have right now (together) is precious." (Hoshi, Fansign, February 2019)

Every gemini I’ve ever known has stressed the importance of friendship to me and how disheartening it is for them when they don’t feel like their friends understand them or really see them for who they are. Having a gemini stellium myself I often try to get closer to people by finding out what they’re into and then also getting into that thing and it’s on some level frustrating to not have that desire to know what things make you happy reciprocated. It’s a kind of imagined courtesy all majorly gemini afflicted people have, and as the sign of communication we should probably be better about letting people know what we expect in relationships. 

[To the other members] "We should be considerate of each other when we speak, and when someone speaks to you, you should understand that they're trying to be considerate of you too" (Hoshi, One Fine Day Season 1)

“When the topic of the choreography for 'Thanks' came up, Hoshi talked about and showed everyone how while making it, he incorporated sign language into the choreography, wanting to show the meaning of thanks through both the song and the movements” (source)

“I think I might as well have confidence and live positively. I am the type to try and put effort to think in a more positive way. [But when it comes to other people] ... I don't go around saying ‘whatever it is, have strength’ annoyingly. When things get hard and tough, we share it and get tired together and then, also together, we would gather our energy back” (Hoshi, Elle Magazine, March 2020)

“I gained interest in choreographies with story-telling in them while thinking about what choreography can set us apart from other idols together with the choreographer-hyung, and paid attention to that part. Since I wanted to make a performance where we can play around freely, I naturally got ideas from musical elements.” (Hoshi, Dazed Magazine, 2017)

“I sometimes stay quiet because with Korean, I don’t know how to express my thoughts in a more clever way” (Jun, Hit the Road) 

I find that gemini placements tend to both be kind of careless with their words and extremely thoughtful about them. A lack of brain to mouth filter but with primarily good intentions I guess. As the sign of communication it makes sense that gemini’s really value communication and how they express themselves but if I may get on my gemini mercury soap box for a moment the way I speak to people and the words I use is very very important to me especially as I’ve come into adulthood I take great care in communicating in a way that is kind and friend shaped which is why I say that receiving a stream of consciousness from someone with a gemini placement is an act of love comparable to making a homemade valentines card. To be able to trust someone with your thoughts as they come to you and know that you will be understood and heard is the level of connection and intimacy that gemini craves 

Thank you for coming to my long ass ted talk on why I love gemini’s and think they’re good actually, I wish I could say i extend this same level of enthusiasm and word vomit to academics but alas…

[be-ca-lm]

pls ignore just gotta get thoughts out of my brain

tw rape and sexual assault ok so i think it started very young when i couldn’t understand why the hell boys and men seemed more important to god and that god was always presented male - i was very young, like elementary aged when i reasoned: he made us in his own image, in order to create female he has to BE equally female, he has to have female image. i was told no no that is wrong and bad and heresy.

then i ALWAYS chafed at the idea of women being helpmeets to men, created as servants to them, their sole reason for existing being in service to better, stronger, smarter males (who cause all the problems like wtf) and that doesn’t seem right or just. the garden was perfect the world god created was perfect so why create anything as lesser than? do you hate women? but men came first - then woman to help, woman as decoration, as slave, as child bearer, as comforter, as mother, as scapegoat. woman as weaker. she fell for temptation in the garden, where was adam? See? Women are stupid, need protecting, incapable of rational thought, logic, reason. look how gullible. look how dangerous to be left unsupervised. all of humanity condemned to fiery torment because of woman. no responsibility of man. hate woman, blame woman, hurt woman, you have every justification to do so. she is trapped, hobbled, shackled, tied to you for her protection, existence, safety. she is prize, she is bounty, she is spoils of war. daughters are property. a woman who does not produce children is worthless, sons are currency for power, social capital, strength. daughters serve you. woman is there as punching bag, as masturbatory relief, as house slave, as decoration, worthless but worth stealing, dirty but rapeable, stupid but cunning, pure but deceptive, ruined but redeemable through birthing. a portal, a tool, woman as commodity, woman as vehicle of corruption and vehicle of salvation, simultaneously and never, all at once and at the same time, wretched and woman. not equal to, but a compliment. a complement. you are no equal to god’s masterpiece, the man. do not kid yourself.

god’s grand plan! look at his design. how perfect. how freeing. how it was meant to be. he created woman who would ruin it, but he is not to blame, it is his creation’s fault, but not the man who he likes better, no not his fault. she is saved through childbirth? she is worthy as ALWAYS depending on her proximity to a MAN to a husband father brother rapist captor buyer slaver son stoner judge jury executioner savior.

so why? why condemn me to this torturous existence, why give me the capacity to KNOW that I am intended to be Less Than, that I am the Weaker Vessel, that I am Not A Man but give me no comfort in that, no recourse, no ability to appeal this existence. Make me a man! I could do so much more for you! I could do your pillaging and raping, I could do your genocide, I could carry out your orders, sacrifice my children, I could spread your Gospel and praise your name, I could earn my place in your heaven by your side because you commanded that I Love You, I could invade your earth, slaughter your animals, impregnate your weaker washy women and fulfill your great commission, i could be the mulitiplier, the glorifier, the pastor preacher whitewasher brainwasher tombfiller father soldier conqueror profiteer leader ruler dictator sin hater. PICK ME CHOOSE ME all I wanted was to be LOVED by you to be told WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT am i not enough for you and since i so clearly am not, why did you create me this way. 

find peace in your role. you have purpose. then why does that not feel natural as young as five years old? at 10? at 14? at 18? at 27? at 33? jesus knows your sorrows he knows you- JESUS CANNOT RELATE TO ME. he was born a man. he was not asked to make himself small. he submitted to dying. no one asked me if i wanted to volunteer. could i come back a man? I do not want to be a man. I want to be a woman in an existence where that is not automatically a Bad Thing, automatically a disadvantage. I am born guilty of the fall of humanity on my shoulders and told my shoulders can never be strong enough to carry that weight. a man will save me. be submissive. men are leaders, you are not naturally a leader. 

men are logical. they can compartmentalize. women are emotional. they cannot compartmentalize, they are ruled by their emotions. men are waffles. women are spaghetti. men are from mars. women are from venus. pop psychology will explain why men are Better. they are better at math, geometry, women cannot visualize things in their brains like that. women are not good engineers. women are soft and kind and nurturing. THIS IS WHAT WAS TOLD TO MY FACE AS A CHILD. i nodded. ok this must be so, i do not see it, it is not true for me, it is not true of any of the women i know, but my dad is saying this IT MUST BE TRUE. how does he know how my brain is wired? 

an escape. i learned about biblical singleness. i do not have to marry, i do not have to trade one household bondage for another, one male protector for a new one. i have an option? I can be single, nay, a single MISSIONARY. i can escape america, the bible belt, i can really and truly help people. i can share my burdens with them so i do not have to carry them alone. it will please god. it will make up for my being born a useless woman. if i do not marry, i do not have to submit to a man. i can be free. i can find some type of comfort in this lifetime.

somewhere along the way, i put aside my ever-growing frustrations toward the treatment of women and the hypocrisy. husbands lead the wife, they are the Head of the Household. I never saw that enacted. Pastor’s wives planned events, spoke at bible studies, sat on committees - it was limited to women only events, yes, but they led? they spoke? they taught and preached and sang and witnessed? the cognitive dissonance was too much. they budgeted, they shopped, they wore clothes i wasn’t allowed to, they were showy. but not allowed to speak in church, not allowed to preach, to pastor, to shepherd. they could mentor. Oh! Perfect. call it a different name and then you can do it. You’re not a pastor, a mentor. Not a preacher, a Bible teacher. The pastor husbands walked around domineering their families and making all the decisions? No - their families would have imploded. They preached submission but in function they were a team. everyone’s parents were. so i guess we can get away with it, and that makes it ok. label it differently and suddenly the bible has nothing to say on that particular matter. they are playing theological gymnastics, but if they can, i can too. i can sleep at night now, i do not have to be angry at god. i can ignore it.

A thought. I believe it grew in the garden of my own mind, but it’s possible a wayward seed blew in from elsewhere but I don’t remember. I was all-in, I silenced my doubts, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, I said yes I believe this, yes I am a dirty sinner, yes I do not deserve grace or mercy or forgiveness, yes I believe that god can give me that anyway in return for my life, my love, my thoughts, my actions, my deeds, my affiliations, my comfort, my pride, my complete and total surrender of my Self, my personality, my person, my autonomy, my desires, my entire existence. I was fervent. I learned the most, I delved in deep, it was theology, soteriology, epistemology, apologetics, baptisms and trinities and divine mysteries. i knew nothing of secular science, i learned nothing of sex. I knew dead men - Calvin, Luther, Arminius, Aquinas, Origen, Augustine, Spurgeon, Bonhoeffer, Wycliff, Niemoller, Lewis, Piper, Paul, James, I knew creeds, doctrines, catechisms, doxology, councils, heresies. 

And I thought. I am all in. I accept all this. I evoke the proper response in myself when I learn these things. If I were born in any other time, any other place, into any other religion - I would accept those things just as eagerly and honestly. Would I not? How could I not? I earned the praise of adults, the admiration of youth group peers, I could exercise my intellect in a way not too offensive for a female to do, because it was always good to learn the bible, right? I was special, smart, serious. A student of the bible, i committed HUNDREDS of verses to memory, i competed in competitions that tested my knowledge of scripture against my peers, I was dominant. It nagged at me. I would have been the best anything, the best Muslim, the best Mormon, the best Hindu, the best Orthodox Jew (especially Orthodox Jew - there are so many RULES and ways to do it BETTER), I was completely lost in the swirl of religiosity that was my life. I did Christian ballet, Christian theater, watched Christian entertainment, listened to Christian music, went to Christian summer camp, had Christian friends, was in a Christian home school group, read Christian books, did Christian mission trips, and eventually chose to go to a Christian college. Not to brag, to sound so insanely arrogant - any religion would be happy to have me. I would give your cult a great name. I’ve got the resume and CV to join any believing army, just give me my marching orders. I swallowed my Self in the belly of the whale of god. My whole life and personality were these things and activities.

then - purity culture hit. and it brought back all the female trauma. the trauma of existing as a woman who THINKS in the subculture of christianity insanity.

[zenosanalytic]

Strange Practice

So I finished Strange Practice last week, and I’ve been meaning to write a reactions/review/whatever for it but just couldn’t get it together until now, but now I have some free time so here we go. Hopefully I won’t have forgotten everything. Nonspoilery tl;dr: felt a bit rushed/too short plot-wise, some great h/c bits(would have loved more), characters were great, relationships were great, loved the premise, I liked it.

So Greta is a wonderful character. Just the concept, a doctor for monstrous/mythic beings, is great, but Vivian Shaw(@ceruleancynic Ascendant) moves her beyond just a compelling, innovative idea. Greta is sardonic, and considerate, and bull-headed, and harried, and self-sufficient, and cool-headed, and constantly worried she’s imposing on others, and universally well-considered(and deservedly), and unassumingly brave, and kind, and self-sacrificing, and SO very professional(I wish I could underline this >:T), and Imminently practical. When she’s not jumping at the first thin opportunity to go haring off on an ill-considered adventure which presents itself, of course. But, the thing is, she’s also very consciously practical; practicality is a trait she admires and tries to cultivate, which presents this tendency as something of a personal blindspot, making it Very Endearing rather than out-of-character. One gets the sense that, if one were to suggest to Ms. Helsing that allowing a emphysemiac not-uncle to lead her on a hike around a drizzly, winter London following the metaphysical trail of a magically armed supernatural assailant was not, in fact, the most practical thing for one of the two supernatural physicians in London to do, she would probably Huff at the suggestion and explain convincingly in the moment why it was perfectly sensible, quietly recognizing the justice of it and feel rather wretched about doing so later, but would still leap at the next such opportunity to present itself. Like I said: Wonderful ^u^ That such, sometimes warring, traits(and others) are fit so neatly and coherently and believable together in a single person naturalisticly is testament in itself to Ms. Shaw’s skill as a writer and weaver of characters.

Ms. Helsing’s proprietary affection for late-middle-age-seeming, domestic, practical-minded and lonely men, with particular inabilities/refusals to take care of themselves of varying obviousness(Fas with his COPD and smoking, Ruthven with his boredom and VERY intense loneliness; he lives in a gigantic house, alone, and positively LEAPS at the suggestion of filling it with guests? This reader sees what this author is doing there :p) is equally endearing. I don’t think I would call it a “collection” despite the urge to; the role of both Fas and Ruthven in her life as connections to her father, as positive adult influences during childhood, as patients, as mentors, and as dear friends in her own rather lonely life, establishes her relationships with them as more than mere replacement dads, and her gravitation to “older” men as more sincere and personal than fetishism or a “type”. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a sexual side to this psychological tendency: Varney certainly cuts a more romantic and gothic(and, tellingly given Greta’s unrecognized[by her. Equally telling is how often others in Greta’s life warn her away from leaping into danger. They, obviously, are Aware :p :p] thrill-seeking, dangerous) figure than Fas and Ruthven, her attraction to him is clear(though not flagrant by any means; the lightness of its presentation is Delicious, making its overt engagement in the conclusion all the more satisfying. I Await the Fic >:]), and it can hardly be coincidence that he has decidedly middle-aged looks as well. This sort of understated, unobtrusive attention to the psychology of her characters, and the myriad ways psychology is expressed, is a trait of Ms. Shaw’s writing which I have always found deeply engaging.

Ok I’ll stop gushing about Greta. Suffice it to say, the rest of the main cast, for the most part, receives similar close attention. Varney’s psychology gets far more explicit treatment, but the motivations of Fas and Ruthven, and how their conditions connect to their views of themselves and their world, are all there, if dealt with more subtly. But lower-key characterization fits them as characters: they are far more understated people than Varney(or at least, in Fas’s case, his dramatic nature masquerades quite successfully as understated. Though, thinking it over now, his love for histrionic humor hints at the lie). And even with Varney, whose internal struggles are laid bare, the handling of those struggles has a wonderful ambiguous quality that invokes sympathy, establishes clearly his loyalties, yet at the same time left me wondering for much of the book(as Varney does himself) if he was truly safe for Greta to be around. That ability of a writer to put a reader into the mind of a character, to invoke the character’s concerns and emotional state in the reader not as sympathy but as immediate sentiment, is wonderful and rare. I do feel like August Cranswell catches the short end of the characterization-stick a bit, with his character being established more through exposition than the others and his psychology being less explored, but I don’t get the sense this was due to neglect so much as time constraints. His role, while important, is smaller than the others, and I feel like, perhaps, his characterization ended up getting compressed in the editing process, though obvsl that’s entirely a guess on my part.

I also liked the book’s physical descriptions. Ms. Shaw doesn’t dwell on them; they are efficient and evocative. I particularly enjoyed her descriptions of faces and hair, and specifically of eyes; the descriptions of the metallic irises of vampires were especially arresting for me. I wouldn’t call Strange Practice a sensual book, but there was certainly a sensual element to many of its more descriptive parts, particularly the h/c sections and those involving Varney, that I very much enjoyed.

And speaking of hurt/comfort, Strange Practice certainly delivers on that score. The sections dealing with medicine and Ms. Helsing’s practice really showcase Ms. Shaw’s talent for the genre, hitting that mix of competence-porn and intimacy(both physical and emotional) excellently. My only real complaint about it is that there wasn’t more of it, but I suppose the days of general release h/c books are far off yet (:T

There were aspects of the book I found less engaging, though. The plot feels inorganic in places, the timeframe compressed, and it struggles to convey the mood of the city in ways beyond exposition. Strange Practice has a very contained feel; the maincast, main settings, and wherever the action goes are colorful and deep and engaging, but everything else, the background I guess you would say, feels a bit insubstantial. In a way that could work for the story she’s trying to tell, Greta and her friends live in a secret subculture attached only tenuously to “normal” life, but if it was aiming at that it didn’t hit the mark, at least not for me. Having read Ms. Shaw’s fanfic I know this isn’t a question of ability -I’ve always found her settings as engaging and “alive” as her characters- so again, I wonder if this is a product of translating her writing to a mass market product. Regardless, while the plot is flawed, it didn’t detract from my appreciation of the book as a whole, or the brightness and appeal of its characters.

I could probably write more about this, but I think this is probably long enough |:| I enjoyed Strange Practice thoroughly, immediately started brainstorming fic while reading it(always a good sign), was Very Pleased with the ending, and am currently low-key excited to see Ms. Shaw’s sequel(Greta being unaware of her beauty is Excellent u_u Greta in exquisite high-end clothes being unaware of her beauty is A Delight u_u u_u). My reaction to it wasn’t as strong or immediate as to The Goblin Emperor or His Majesty’s Dragon, but I liked it, it was fun, the concept and setting is engaging, the prose is general quite good, and I adored its characters.

[unionrising]

Who are the trolls?

What we know about the men (and sometimes women) who spend their days trying to provoke a reaction on the internet.

Dissociative anonymity ("my actions can't be attributed to my person"); invisibility ("nobody can tell what I look like, or judge my tone"); asynchronicity ("my actions do not occur in real-time"); solipsistic Introjection ("I can't see these people, I have to guess at who they are and their intent"); dissociative imagination ("this is not the real world, these are not real people"); and minimising authority ("there are no authority figures here, I can act freely").

"There’s the disturbing possibility that people are creating online environments purely to express the type of racist, homophobic, or sexist speech that is no longer acceptable in public society, at work, or even at home.”

Feminist writer Lindy West receives a daily deluge of hate on Twitter and Facebook for her work on everything from body image to rape. The abuse became unbearable when one tormentor created a fake Twitter account for West’s father, who had recently passed away, and tweeted cruel comments about West.

Alt-Right Racists Teach Newbies How To Troll

Andrew Anglin’s blog, The Daily Stormer, is an anti-semitic breeding ground for racist trolls that Anglin claims is the “most visited alt-right website” in the world.    “Now is the time to reach out to the masses to exponentially increase our numbers and finish (((them))),” Anglin wrote; the triple parentheses is alt-right code for Jews.  ...encouraging his followers to continue being as racist as possible.“So make sure to tone down the hate speech and bigotry, okay guys? We have to appeal to norms,” he wrote in a post. “LOL! Just kidding. Keep on gassing kikes as usual, my friends. Don’t ever change.”

The Unbelievable Harassment Black Women Face Daily on Twitter

“I get attacked on a daily basis," she told AlterNet in an interview. “There’s not a day that goes by when someone isn’t trolling or harassing me. But what I’ve also noticed is that the kind of direct defense that I receive has been relatively minimal, and it usually comes from the same people every time. Some people say to me, 'Oh I see you’re handling it, so I figure that you’ve got it' or 'You’re such a strong woman. You got it. You take it on your shoulders and you’re just so good at it.' And I don’t know if it’s the strong black women trope or something else, but a lot of people feel I don’t need the help and so they don’t. I also think some people are afraid of catching the same kind of heat if they intervene directly.”

"I've had lynching threats. People send me terrible historical pictures of our ancestors being lynched. So proportionately speaking, if you're not a person of color, you will not get that. Let's say there are 100 insults in the world, there are more of them that apply to us. When a white woman gets terrible harassment about being raped, attacked or killed, that's very serious as well. But there's no way she can get the lynching threats with historical pictures of black people. So there's a whole other section of ugly, hideous things people feel they can say to us."

The truth about trolls and the men they worship

A man who threatens women can generate more concern within the tech industry than female victims of abuse.  Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, a well-known provocateur, hacker, and anti-Semite, is part of an internet subculture where might makes right, where the only moral code is for the superior to enforce their will on the inferior. 

The “alt-right” now had an opportunity to inject racism, misogyny, and xenophobia into mainstream American politics. Provocative but obscure online rhetoric was quickly morphing into something more serious and powerful: the normalization of the politics of hate.

What was once obscure rhetoric and hate speech festering in the backwaters of the internet has since bloomed into a loose-knit extremist movement with the prospect of unprecedented influence in the White House. Here's how it happened.

2014 - Gamergate trolls target female video game developers and journalists, creating a model for the social-media mobs of the alt-right.

April 2015 - The New York Times and the Washington Post each partner with author Peter Schweizer, Breitbart's senior editor-at-large, for reporting based on his controversial investigative book Clinton Cash. During the 2016 election, Breitbart News offers a "free global broadcast" of the film adaptation—written and produced by Bannon.

June 2015 - Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president, electrifying white nationalists with his disparagement of Mexican criminals and "rapists." Trump soon garners endorsements from nearly two dozen neo-Nazi, KKK, and other extremist leaders.

October 2015 - Trump tweets an image of himself as Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right.

March 2016 - Milo Yiannopoulos and a fellow Breitbart writer publish a lengthy "Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right," denying the movement's leaders are racist and calling them "dangerously bright."

September 2016 - "Racialist" leaders, led by Richard Spencer, hold a press conference characterized as a "coming-out party" for the movement. Yiannopoulos ramps up a tour of college campuses. The Anti-Defamation League lists cartoon character Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol.

November 2016 - Spencer says the alt-right is "the vanguard of Trumpian populism" and will be a "critical force" pushing Trump "in the right direction." Trump names Bannon as his White House chief strategist.

It never would have happened without Trump acting as troll in chief. Already admired by extremists for his ongoing birther crusade against President Barack Obama, Trump riveted their attention when he announced his White House run and vowed to build a border wall to keep out Mexican criminals and "rapists." That soon earned him praise from a who's who of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and militia supporters.

Prior to Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, former head of the alt-right “news” website Breitbart, as his campaign chief (and later White House chief strategist), many people and members of the media wrote off the site and its reporters as trolling the general populace — even though it claimed around 8 million readers at the beginning of the year, a number that would jump to over 18 million thanks to the election. As polls and pundits dismissed Trump’s chances of winning in the lead-up to the election, many people dismissed alt-right trolling, too.

"It's not just that [journalists] are leftists and cucks," anti-Semite Richard Spencer railed at a recent meeting filmed by The Atlantic. "Indeed, one wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem."

"I am not a troll, but I kind of get them," says Spencer. "They are real and in some ways they have advanced the movement more than I have."

Trump's brazen political style thrilled the trolls—and he showed them, by engaging them throughout his campaign, that they could have political currency.

It’s not a failure of human intelligence that many people failed to take “trolling” more seriously. Much in the same way that fake news on Facebook was easy to dismiss until people realized its potential to massively influence many voters’ viewpoints, trolling obfuscates truth and reality, often through satirical means, in order to mask sincere propaganda.

The alt-right has elevated fringe trolling into a virulent form of propaganda that Spencer and others dub "meme magic." Trolls push hateful memes such as the Jewish "Happy Merchant" and the black "dindu nuffin" (a slur meant to echo "I didn't do nothin'") without fear of censure, thanks to the anonymity of Twitter and other platforms. Some journalists have speculated that the spread of this content is in part the work of Russian troll farms, though the extent of foreign involvement is unknown.

San Francisco-based entrepreneur and alt-right blogger Curtis Yarvin  laid out a political philosophy known as neoreaction or the "Dark Enlightenment." Combining a technocratic sensibility with reactionary political thought, neoreaction rejects Enlightenment concepts such as democracy and equality and instead advocates something much closer to authoritarianism. 

Peter Thiel, who reportedly donated more than $1 million to Trump's campaign and was named to his transition team in November, has circled neoreactionary ideas. "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible," he wrote on the Cato Institute's blog in 2009, adding that women and "welfare beneficiaries" have through their voting habits "rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron." 

Trolling distorts reality in order to trick you into dismissing its message

Meme culture allowed the alt-right’s white supremacy to spread online.  “Don’t feed the trolls” failed spectacularly as a tactic during the 2016 election cycle, stunning many people who assumed the alt-right’s tactics were juvenile and easily seen-through.

One of the most significant and pernicious ways that members of the alt-right use trolling is to create a sincerity-proof chamber of distortion surrounding what their actual message is. They do this by pretending that what they’re really doing is satirically spoofing how progressives and members of the media view conservatives.

If you try to play along with the alt-right’s hyperbole by intellectualizing it (for example, by painting it primarily as cultural commentary), dismissing it as trolling, or simply ignoring it altogether, you risk glossing over actual dangerous messages: racist, misogynistic, bigoted, and violent symbolism and language.

Anglin lays out the unifying themes of the alt-right movement — misogyny, anti-Semitism, racism, and white nationalism — and explains how meme culture, trolling, and conspiracy theories have linked them under one umbrella term. Further garnishing that hate-filled combination with a large dollop of irony is what allows the alt-right’s troll culture, according to Anglin, to spread its white supremacist message.

Anglin acknowledges in his blog post that the alt-right’s use of ironic hyperbole “can be confusing to the mainstream, given the level of irony involved. The amount of humor and vulgarity confuses people.”

But he’s also very clear that the point of using irony is to mask something utterly straightforward: “The true nature of the movement, however, is serious and idealistic.” In a postmodern, post-ironic culture, he argues, “absolute idealism must be couched in irony in order to be taken seriously.”

What Anglin calls “idealism,” many people consider dangerous white nationalism.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/09/trolls-men-witch-hunt-internet

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/trump-white-nationalists-hate-racism-power

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/alt-right-timeline-bannon-breitbart-trump

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/23/13659634/alt-right-trolling

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man

http://www.alternet.org/unbelievable-harassment-black-women-face-daily-twitter

http://www.newstatesman.com/helen-lewis/2013/07/who-are-trolls

http://www.vocativ.com/354901/alt-right-racists-teach-newbies-how-to-troll-following-hillary-clinton-speech/

http://b1nd1.deviantart.com/art/Internet-Jerks-207469542

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2015/02/twitter-ceo-vows-fix-trolling-problem

[cmnartanddesign-blog]

Brain Dump

Fandom

Gamer

Theater

Campus

UFO Believers

Fangirl

Nerd

Otaku

Weeaboo

Design

    I believe there are “Communities of Speech/Practice” that I participate in. At first it was hard to figure out what subcultures I am part of, but looking through things I’m interested in and things I talk about that other people may not comprehend outside of my friends and community it becomes clearer.  Three of these communities are Fandoms, Design, and Otaku.

   In the video, a dialect is determined by word choices and how one strings together words. In the video, a community of practice is made up of five separate parts: linguistics, social identity, community membership, community practice and forms of participation. I agree that these five pieces are present in the “subcultures” or “communities of practice I am part of.” For example, in Fandoms, there is a lingo used when discussing characters relating to the fandom. “Cinnamon roll” is a term used to call a character sweet or kind. If you were to call someone outside fandoms “Cinnamon roll” they would think you are calling them a food. There is a Community Membership present in fandoms, there are entire websites and blogs dedicated to different types of fandoms for different books, shows, and movies. One participates in a fandom by talking about characters, writing, or reading fanfiction and things of this nature. The community practice is the act of watching a certain show repeatedly or reading a series of books. The social identity aspect is when I would designate myself a “book nerd” I am stating I am part of a community in which we read and discuss books. Calling myself a book nerd is associating myself with my fandom. All five elements are present in fandoms.

   Design is a community of Speech/Practice I am part of. I am a graphic design student, and through that, I am part of a bigger network of designers. We are a community, and there are linguistic patterns to how designers speak. Works such as kerning, leading, negative and positive space are common to our ears. To someone not in a design field or around designers may have never even heard these words nor know what they mean right off the bat. There is a clear social identity, I say I am a designer. I am proud to call myself this because I am happy to be associated with a community of other brilliant creatives. One participates in design, by designing. Community practice is when a group of designers come together and discuss work, critique or even just discuss art world related topics. Designers are part of there own world in the way they speak and create work. There is a definite culture to being part of design and all five elements are present.

   Otaku is a subculture I am loosely apart of. I say loosely because I do not participate in all 5 aspects that make Otaku a community of Speech/Practice, but the subculture does have all five elements. A linguistic form is present if you walk up to a person who does not watch anime and asked them if they watch “sub” or “dub” they may have no idea what you are talking about. If you asked them who they “ship” they may think you are discussing a seafaring vessel not a relationship between characters. Otaku has a clear form of participation such as: watching anime and talking about it, cosplaying, buying and eating specifically Japanese food and snacks. Just to name a few things. The community practice and form of participation blend into one thing with Otaku culture. Otaku reflects on my social identity when I call myself an anime nerd because I watch anime and am part of another subculture of Fandoms. I try to hide the fact I watch anime because of people outside of Otaku culture having negative connotations about what anime is and what Japanese culture is and reflects. People judge you for being interested in a different’ culture through their food, customs, and entertainment more than the culture your local ‘American’ culture. If you were to tell someone whose very patriotic that you would rather live in a society more like Japanese culture they would probably tell you to just move. When really your comment is referring to customs you admire and would love to have here in America. Otaku is something I am part of, but not as closely part of as say design or fandoms.

   These are three of the Communities of Speech/Practice I am part of, and after breaking it down like this, I think it is pretty cool stuff like this exists. It is nice to be around people who have similar interests as you and to talk about things you love free of judgment.

[theseventhhex]

Love Ssega Interview

Love Ssega

Channelling a mix of New Wave, 80s hip-hop and NYC disco into smart modern pop, Love Ssega's music draws on an evocative point in sound and culture far removed from the Lewisham borough in which he was raised. Born to Ugandan parents and finding initial inspiration in the topical South London Garage, Bass and Grime scenes, Ssega finished school and landed a place at Cambridge University, where he studied Chemical Engineering. Returning to the musical forefront with a catchy range of stunning singles, Love Ssega’s creative outlet is sure win over a host of new admirers with his distinctive and optimistic energy in mind… We talk to the young virtuoso about trial and error, visiting Japan and Anthony Joshua…

TSH: What sort of expressions and perspectives have you primarily been drawn to voice with Love Ssega?

Love Ssega: I guess it’s my own life experiences. It’s that line in Out Here Looking “you don’t go where I was, haven’t been where I am…”. I happen to have found myself in some pretty incredible situations, and most were pre-Instagram, so I have to sing about them for people to believe me. Also, there’s a lot going on, so musically pop should be deeper than just about who Taylor Swift is beefing. Some things baffle me, so I think I should sing about them.

TSH: Is it key to not be too serious and to have a playfulness feel with your crafting process?

Love Ssega: YES! If I wanted to lecture people I would have stayed in academia. And if you think you’re the best musician since Beethoven took off his wig, then remember, Crazy Frog has probably sold more than you. Don’t be too serious.

TSH: In terms of gear, what sort of styles and techniques do you look to incorporate?

Love Ssega: The best ‘gear’ is live musicians. Bands are undervalued, so I’m on a crusade to show they matter. Think about it, no one pays a lot for a gig then shouts ‘that beat machine was so good’, whereas they might mention a bassist, or a drummer or lead guitar… There’s cost cutting, but I thought this was the entertainment industry, not Office for Budgetary Responsibility.

TSH: With your music, can it be as case of embracing spontaneity, as well as trial and error?

Love Ssega: In the early days spontaneity was the go to! It was called not having a lot of money for recording studios, so you pretend each take was a perfect take or intentional. Job done. And as for trial and error, let’s just say some major labels can pay good money for that too, so I’m not complaining! Nowadays it’s all meticulous and forensically planned.

TSH: What sort of energy and feel were you looking to imply with ‘Hot Electrolytes’?

Love Ssega: The opposite of “cold pizza” I’d say. I had a really long answer, but I think this one is even better.

TSH: Moreover, what does a track like ‘Out Here Looking’ signify to you?

Love Ssega: I love this track and I didn’t realise that it would come out with so much global fuckery going on, especially in the UK. Really geeky point, but I added some piano chords late in the process to uplift the second part, because through this all, we need uplifting, generally and through music. But this song is a little reminder that younger people are watching.

TSH: Thinking about your live offerings, what are the key incentives that you want to manifest?

Love Ssega: If you come to my live show, come to dance. Expect a 5-piece band and energy. Watch us and you’ll see us enjoying it on stage and you’ll see where the notes are coming from. If the band is having a party on stage, the crowd has to join in.

TSH: Are there certain emotions that you feel are difficult to articulate with your songwriting?

Love Ssega: I think that problem only comes about when you have songwriters writing for artists that haven’t experienced that emotion, so on a philosophical level, maybe the inability to articulate a feeling is the precise emotion. Then the song could be about naivety, innocence or maybe even insolence. Went a bit off piste, but maybe that’s a hint of more music to come…

TSH: Does the vastness of chemical engineering seep into your music in any way at all?

Love Ssega: Chemical engineering gave me more random words to use, so maybe subconsciously. Plus most parents love a bit of engineering chat, so I can revert to type if the Hot Electrolytes aren’t flowing around a conversation.

TSH: What were some of your highlights during your visit to Japan earlier this year?

Love Ssega: Speaking a bit of Japanese on stage to the crowd, visiting the Maison Kitsuné store in Shibuya, as they put out one of my tracks, and then seeing a life-sized Mario Kart driving around Tokyo. I love Japan and the fashion there is crazy.

TSH: How was time spent at London Fashion Week recently?

Love Ssega: London Fashion Week was great. I’ve never been, so I’ve always been an outsider, but I have a selection of British Men’s fashion shops that I always go to in London. To get a GQ invite to the Hogan x Aston Martin collection launch was pretty cool and being not so long after the London terror attacks it was good to see the city back on its feet celebrating something creative.

TSH: Which artist in recent times have you been most fond and respectful of?

Love Ssega: Bjork. From the prettiness of Gling-glo to the strange atmosphere of Medulla, and then she gets David Attenborough doing skits on Biophilia! Mad! I saw her show at Alexander Palace in London. Also, she’s making videos with more powerful computers than I had in my Chemical Engineering lab. Some people want to be ‘weird’ but Bjork has never been a-melodic. Her songwriting is ridiculous and that’s the key.

TSH: How would you sum up your range of emotions during Joshua vs Klitschko?

Love Ssega: I love boxing and Joshua is a new breed of individual popping up. As a young black Brit, I had to be proud and I like the way he carries himself. I had a full range of emotions from 6th to 11th rounds, but it’s that true grit that came through. Plus he played a road rap anthem on his ring walk! Love that cheekiness. Real champ and the People’s champ.

TSH: What sort of TV do you watch in your spare time?

Love Ssega: I wish I had more time for TV but I do watch a lot of YouTube Hip Hop interviews, mainly The Breakfast Club, because these guys were real stars. Before media training messed the whole game up and gave us dull soundbites and safe questioning. I need to watch the new Aziz Ansari (Master of None) and Donald Glover (Atlanta) shows though, as they are certified greats in my opinion. Plus they go against stereotypes, which is something you might have guessed I like.

TSH: For you musical endeavours, is it very much a case of making work that you feel challenges yourself?

Love Ssega: Jamie Oliver doesn’t go out and sell the same omelette all day, so yes, I should challenge myself too. Also, I wouldn’t congratulate people for selling the same product to the same people who like buying stuff multiple times. Each to their own, but I didn’t stop laser spectroscopy to be the musical equivalent of a double-glazing salesman. As profitable as that may appear.

TSH: Finally, is the following statement you shared on social media the type of advice that you feel matters a lot today – ‘It's not about winning people over, it's about showing them it can be done.’..

Love Ssega: Absolutely. If everybody sees what you’re doing and ‘likes’ it instantly, then it is unlikely to be paradigm shifting - it’s more likely to be a rehash of ‘common consensus’. And social media is great at amplifying common consensus, or worst still, the lowest common denominator. We’ve gone from ‘show and prove’ to ‘prove then show’ which is a bit baffling. Especially the ‘it’s hard to prove without showing’, meaning many ideas die before being shown because they didn’t have ‘sufficient social media numbers’. Before we had the “underground” - nightclubs, pirate radio, raves - to protect subcultures, freaks and geeks from the mass judgement until they “showed us it could be done”. Here’s to the subcultures, freaks and (chemical engineering) geeks.

Love Ssega - “Hot Electrolytes”

Hot Electrolytes - Single