#the rest are bipoc and queer

[ride-thedragon]

I might have to go with the fanon race changes for these great houses × nettles concepts. These many white people aren't good for my spirit. I'm losing my zest for life when I go on Pinterest.

[i-hate-accidents]

I feel like Benedict would be so frazzled when his love is in labor. He would insist on being in the room with his wife

the author took immense liberties with this idea. she hopes you enjoy it nevertheless and offers her thanks for sharing it with them~

the author would also like to name that, whilst a she/her femme, the sort of reader who the author wrote with in mind would likely not resonate with being called 'wife.' she would likely prefer 'partner' or a more gender inclusive term. <3

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ ✕ ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

i hate accidents: a drabble

femme!reader x benedict bridgerton, femme!reader & the bridgerton family, femme!reader & penelope featherington

summary:  the adventures of a working class femme who befriends a fellow writer, a boisterous family, and a bewitching second eldest son

sections:  I. the beginning / II. the between / III. the ball

y/n:  bipoc, she/her, afab, nonbinary femme, queer, working class, of immigrant parents

content warnings:  pregnancy (no birthing/labor)

word count:  891

tagged: @mikariell95 @omgsuperstarg @flyestvenustrap @nowheredreamer @jimblejamblewritings

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ ✕ ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

“you are thinking of something.”

you smile; your husband knows you too well.  you continue to rub at your protruding stomach. 

“our child can kill a scottish king,” you respond.

benedict laughs through his nose, his ocean eyes crinkling in the adorable way that they always do whenever he is truly delighted. 

“if you hadn’t said 'scottish,' i might have needed to turn you in for treason.  why do you say that, love?”

you struggle out of your lounge, swatting at your kindly husband’s offer to assist you, and waddle over to your shelves of books.  you drag your forefinger across the spines until you emit an ‘aha!’ and pull the book.  flipping towards the end, you find the pressed wisteria you used to mark the verse and read,

“‘for none of woman born shall harm macbeth,’” you look up from the words to benedict as you beam with pride.  “see?  the premiere attribute for assassinating a fictitious monarch, and here our child has it because of me.”

your husband returns your beam as he approaches you and leans in to plant a soft kiss on your temple.  shifting himself to be behind you, he wraps his arms around your waist and rests his hands on the low of your stomach.  you lean into the comfort of his embrace.

“and how shall we support our child with their nefarious intentions?” benedict inquires.

you hum.

“both their parents are quite proficient in fencing.  perhaps it is a trait that they shall inherit?”

“that seems certain.  their parents are also quite good at sneaking about; that ought to be of use to them for their plot.”

you snort.

“i think you are too generous, love.  there is a certain eldest brother who has vehemently disproved time and time again that we are, in fact, quite terrible at sneaking about.”

benedict nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck, causing you to giggle.  you can feel his smile against your quickened pulse.  it is silly; how he is your husband— how he is the father of your child to-be!  and yet, he still makes you feel this way.  he still makes these damned butterflies flutter within you.

“more incentive to keep practicing, no?”  you feel benedict’s smile broaden into a grin.  “for our child, of course.”

stupid benedict.

you shake your head with all the affection in your heart.

“for our child.”

a small silence falls amongst you.  you should allow yourself this comfort.  you should allow yourself this peace.  but—

“do you think i can do it?” 

you had meant to say it as plainly as you could, but the tears that threaten to fall from your eyes choked your words into a whisper.  benedict releases himself from the embrace, one hand still on your stomach, as he shifts to face you.

“do what, my love?”

the crack in the softness of his voice and the gentle circles you feel on your stomach from his touch make you close your eyes.

“birth our child.  raise them.  what if it is too much?  what if i hurt them?  what if i—” you flutter your eyes open to the tear-blurry sight of disquiet in ocean eyes, “what if i am not the parent they deserve?”

he says your name, and that is enough to allow your tears to fall.  you start to look down, feeling the weight of your shame settle within you, but benedict does not let you.  he gently cups your face, lifts it, and kisses wherever tears roll down your cheeks.  benedict murmurs ‘i love you’ with each kiss until he whispers,

“i am fearful too.”

you pull your face away from his and see how his throat bobs, as it always does right before he wishes to say something more firmly.

“i am fearful that i will fail them.  i am fearful that i will not be even an inkling of a father to our child as my father was to me,” benedict heaves a sigh, and you see how he wills himself not to let his tears fall.  “but,” his throat bobs again, “then i remind myself that our child has you, y/n.”

you place a hand on his cheek and softly rub your thumb against his skin.

“you can cry too, benedict,” you manage.

he huffs out a laugh as he allows a tear to fall.  you gently press your lips against his cheek to capture it.

“yes, but i am not the one carrying our child.”

you look down at your stomach and then up at your husband.  you offer a small smile.

“i suppose it is your fault that i am in such a state.”

that makes benedict laugh fully. 

stupid butterflies. 

he tries to look down and away, suddenly shy by the very silly observation you have made, but you do not let him.  you shift your head and capture him with a kiss between his chin and his cheek, gently pushing his face up and murmuring ‘i love you’ into his skin.

perhaps your and benedict’s fear shall never go away.  perhaps you two shall never be the perfect parents you wish to be for your child.  but your child was created out of real, true love.  a love that protects, that laughs, that nurtures, that comforts, that heals.  and perhaps, that is enough.

𝄆 ⚘ ✸ ✕ ✸ ⚘ 𝄇

[hussyknee]

I just want to make one thing very clear. Black and brown people, especially Muslims right now, don't owe white people for your allyship in racial justice. Not even those who are themselves systemically marginalized in some way. Not white Jews, not white queers, not white disabled, not white working class, not white poor.

Whiteness is the most lethal kind of oppression because it built the current colonial capitalist, imperialist world order. Every white person benefits from and is complicit in its systems in some way because white supremacy is global. Whatever marginalization has white people in it can be and is easily weaponized against the mellanated. When charged with your racist, exclusionary and oppressive behaviour you hold up Black and brown people of the same marginalizations as tokens. This is the only time they are ever visible; more often than not you profit off their labour, hoard their gains, throw them under the bus and make them part of your iconography for liberal progress points once they're dead and have no inconvenient opinions about your conduct.

This is why it's very hard for Black and brown people to take accusations of bigotry towards you in good faith. We also have a duty of care towards others but more often than not it feels like you want us to do what you want while holding a knife to our necks. Even when you don't do it directly, you issue demands like "if you don't do x and y you clearly don't care about my people and deserve the worst!!!" without considering for a moment that the full brunt of that policing will always fall on Black and brown people, because punitive justice exercises itself first and foremost on the vulnerable. If your demands for allyship carry disproportionate punishment for Black and brown people should we refuse, you're just on some power trip and never needed our help in the first place. This also obfuscates the needs and disenfranchisement of BIPOC Jewish, queer, poor, disabled and Global South people, because without racial justice, few of your gains will ever materialise in their lives. It's always trickle down liberation for the rest of us.

Your allyship is supposed to be the work of conscience, a recognition of injustice and a drive towards privilege equal to your own. For white people, it's an individual reparation on your part. It is not an act of kindness, or benevolence, or a transaction that must be repaid in kind. The worst of us deserve the same rights the worst of you already have. That's the meaning of equality. If you're willing to let us get fired, deported, or brutally murdered for bad behaviour, then not only were you never an ally, you were also just waiting for the opportunity to use that weapon you claim you never wanted. There is no justice in an asymmetry of power.

[eternalbuckley]

Taking Care. — evan buckley

SUMMARY: You got hurt on a recent call and Buck takes care of you as your friend but you end up agreeing to go on a date with him. — check out the request!

word count: 915

genre: fluff | gn!reader, queer!reader, bipoc!reader and plus-size!reader friendly

warnings/tropes: one mention of hospital, mentions of a broken leg (reader), talks about injuries, english is not my first language, i'm not a professional in medical things so it might now make comepletely sense (it's fiction alright), slightly proofread — if I forgot something, please let me know!

disclaimer: please do not repost or try and take ownership of my work or post this anywhere without my consent. do not translate my work and post it anywhere — i give you no permission to do that. i only post my stories here, so if you find my work anywhere else please let me know! reblogs, likes and comments are appreciated and welcomed!

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ 1k celebration | navigation | masterlists | taglist

“Buck I’m fine I swear,” you huffed, slightly in pain, as you walked up the stairs to your flat while Buck had his arm under yours to keep you up.

On a recent call, you hurt your leg heavily and have to take off a few weeks to get better again. It was not a very chaotic call, it was a car crash between two people and you weren’t quick enough to get away from the scene as another car drove into the scene and hit you slightly. Everything happened quickly and you hurt your leg. Buck has made it his mission to take care of you now and help you to feel as good as possible. He even took off the next few shifts to spend his time with you, so you wouldn’t have to be alone.  

“I’ll help you. I promised you,” he reminded you of the promise he made to you as you waited in the hospital for your test results.

As he took your key and opened the door of your flat, you went in with your crutches and sighed as soon as you were able to sit down on your couch. After Buck closed the door and put down your bag, he rushed towards you and helped you to put up your leg on your couch. He reached out his hand to you and pointed to a cushion that was next to you. Without needing words, you gave it to him and he gently put it under your leg. Making sure you feel more comfortable.

You eventually sighed and closed your eyes for a moment. “Thank you, Buck,” you smiled in a relaxed way.

“No need to thank me,” he quietly said. It was his way to show people that he cared about him. If he was able to help anyone he cared about, he’d do it. Especially with you, the one person who made his heart beat faster whenever you talked, had the slightest body contact, smiled at him, looked at him or even more. Anything that had anything to do with you, would make his heartbeat faster. There was no way he could deny it at all and despite everyone telling him to shoot his shot with you, he didn’t do it. He respected the friendship you formed too much and didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t want to make anything uncomfortable between you or even risk losing you as a friend.

It's been two weeks later. You already felt better whether it was because of being able to rest or because Buck basically took care of you in as many aspects as he was able to do it. No matter how many times you told him, that he wouldn’t have to do it, he did it and you were still thankful for it. You adored him, especially if he wouldn’t back away from any promises he made. It was hard to be close to him every day since your injury, as he basically wouldn’t leave your side as soon as he got back from his shift. No matter how tired he was, he’d make sure you felt better first, even if you were capable of doing it alone. Sometimes he took his role of taking care too much and you needed to remind him but it got better afterwards. You would be lying if you said that you didn’t enjoy spending your time with him, especially because you liked him. You had liked him for some time now but never dared to make a move. You were too afraid to risk your friendship or even lose him.

He was currently sitting next to you and took the plate of you to put it down on the couch table. Buck made some dinner for the two of you and it kind of felt like you were a couple but you quickly tossed the thought of it away. Even if it gave you a little jump in your stomach. He just finished his story of the last shift and leaned back, tossing one of his arms around you. It was something you’ve been doing your whole friendship. After a few moments of comfortable silence between you, you decided to break it.

“How can I ever repay you for all your work?” You quietly asked him as you looked up to him from your current position. You played with his hand that was wrapped around you.

Buck was quiet for a moment and thought about an idea. One that stuck in his mind for a long while now. You watched him and noticed a subtle change in his face. He seemed nervous.

He slightly moved his head, so he could look at you. “Once you get better, I would like to take you on a date,” he whispered. Hoping you would agree and not tell him to leave. “If- If you’re okay with it. I mean if not, just forget what I said I-“

You put your index finger on his lips to shush him and smiled at him, your heart beating faster and heat spreading to your face. “I’d love to go on a date with you, Buck,” you smiled at him happily.

His body immediately relaxed and he gave you one of his biggest smiles. “Really?”

“Yes. Really,” you chuckled and caressed his cheek.

It would be the start of a wonderful relationship that would continue to blossom as long as you were together. Happier than ever.

[queerly-autistic]

Every so often, I take a step back, and give myself space to be absolutely furious about the fact we are having to fight for this.

There is nothing more that we, the cast, the crew, the show itself, could have done in order to get us the third series David always had planned. The numbers were fantastic. It received acclaim from the audience and from critics. The engagement was easily beating out shows that had much, much higher budgets. Renewal should have been a shoe-in.

The show did everything right - in the face of budget cuts and studio interference and strikes and half-hearted marketing efforts, it fought through to be one of the top shows.

And yet, here we are, forced to fight tooth and nail in order to get this story the ending it, and we, deserve.

We should be celebrating and getting excited about a third season, looking forward to the tidbits and hints as the cast and crew go to shoot later this year, but instead, we're fighting for the show's survival.

It's not just queer shows: it's BIPoC-centric shows, it's shows that feature good disabled characters, it's all these shows that make marginalised people feel seen and represented in ways that the wider media market hasn't allowed us to be.

One day, we won't have to fight for them.

One day, we will just be able to enjoy these stories and rest easier knowing that they won't be arbitrarily cut short. One day their quality and their numbers will be enough to keep them going, just like their (often far more mediocre, less successful) white, cisallohet, abled counterparts.

But we aren't there, yet.

And we're allowed to be angry about that.

[cozmikvi]

also, jacket update

I am aware of the messiness of the lettering. That is intentional.. to an extent. You see I had tried to use a single piece of cardstock as a template, however, the paint soaked through the cardstock while drying and stuck to the back, so i had to use a knife and water (i didnt have any alcohol) to scrape the rest of the stencil as best as I could, and was fucking pissed with the fuck up, however. Instead of covering it up or trying to just black out the back then try again, I decided im going to keep the fuckup, and work my way around it, highlight it even. Now im currently looking at ways to do a print transfer and have the white parts outside of the lettering be newspaper clippings of instances of police brutality against the queer community, especially Queer BIPOC.

[belle-keys]

Summary: Virtual Author Talk with Cassandra Clare at San Anselmo Public Library (23/08/23)

Cassie wrote her first “novel” when she was 12 on a Mac computer, the infamous The Beautiful Cassandra that she regularly teases to us. She got into writing fiction professionally full-time after leaving her journalism job in 2006.

Finishing City of Bones took about 3-4 years because it was her first novel. Holly Black was the one who hooked her up with her first agent who then got the book published, which was a really new experience. She said that the publishing process was initially surprising to her because of how crazily long it takes to get a single book published.

Cassie acknowledges that City of Bones is starkly “different” from the rest of all her books in colour and voice, because of how experimental the novel writing process was for her. She said she thinks she’s evolved a lot as a writer since then.

She aims for psychological realism in her books even though it’s fantasy. She tries to see each character as a fully-formed person who can exist outside of the immediate plot. She creates worksheets to write her characters.

She also believes it’s necessary to let your main characters make bad mistakes – she cites Matthew as a prominent example i.e. someone highly reactive to their own mistakes. Matthew is defined by his regret and his need to fix his mistakes. She thinks Matthew is one of the most relatable characters because of this.

She’s very drawn to the found family trope because of how much she moved around as a kid – the stability and love of a found family is something she’s worked to build her whole life. She emphasizes the importance of friendship and its different forms in life.

Cassie cites Magnus as the character who turned out most differently than she had initially planned – she hadn’t originally anticipated how significant Magnus would be in the wider scheme of the series.

Doing The Last Hours was, at least a little, in response to people’s excitement about The Family Tree back in 2013.

Her advice for writing fantasy worlds is to create a flexible and expansive magic system so it can grow with you as a writer. She also emphasizes letting your favorite characters make poor decisions – your characters determine the plot and not the other way around.

Cassie strikes a balance between planning worldbuilding details beforehand and then spontaneously adding in new things in the writing process. The Scholomance is an example of something new that was added later in the TSC writing chronology.

She decided that Sword Catcher had to be in the adult publishing category because when she initially developed the characters, they just appeared as people in their twenties. With TSC, the characters had just appeared to her as teenagers then. Writing characters in these different life stages was interesting and challenging.

Sword Catcher is the first in a duology, but she’d like it to be four books if it’s successful.

Cassie has always wanted to write Shadowhunters in the Roaring ‘20s but she has no idea what the plot would possibly be.

She doesn’t read TSC fanfiction, but her husband has informed her of a popular Magnus X BTS fanfiction on AO3. She stays away from fanfiction, but she is very invested in the fanart of her works. Her favorite artist is, of course, Cassandra Jean, and she also loves Charlie Bowater.

She loves writing with Holly Black and probably would only do more Middle Grade writing with her.

She is very much anti-censorship and anti-banning books, especially because of the form it takes in the US (aka, censorsing books dealing with issues affecting the BIPOC and queer communities).

She doesn’t believe they’ll do another TMI adaptation in any form, even though she doesn’t believe the TMI books’ story was ever truly told. She hopes, one day, that TID can get made as it’s the most adaptable series in her catalogue for logistical reasons.

If she couldn’t be a fiction writer, her dream job would be a travel writer. She intensely loves traveling and making her characters travel as well.

Her favorite author of all time is Dorothy Dunnett. She thinks you should check out The Queen’s Thief by Megan Whaler Turner (I agree). And she’s currently reading Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak (I really enjoyed this one).

[synapticjive]

Oshamir crew, I’m tired. After hearing the news, I’ve stepped away from the servers and needed to detox. I’m so fed up with queer BiPOC narratives being sanitized and cancelled. I’ve lost a lot of steam and am disappointed that we’re losing this fight. Please keep it up for the rest of us, I’m gonna have to sit this one out and refocus on other fandoms in the meantime.

[ineffable-doll]

Sick of music that’s always about sex and romance? Me too, man!

Thankfully, there’s TONS of music out there that isn’t. Here are some artists with songs I LOVE LOVE LOVE that aren’t about either of those things to diversify your musical subject matter!

(Every artist is also either BIPOC, queer, or both!)

*Links lead to Spotify, but their music is available on all the other usual platforms, too!

Janani K. Jha 📚🏺

Vibe: like devouring an entire fantasy series in a weekend then blinking awake and realizing the rest of the world still exists somehow and you’re no longer sure what to do with your life

Library Card

Machine Learning

Two Roads

Vienna Teng 🌄🎹

Vibe: like life is a series of ups and downs and you’re softly clinging to hope because there really is so much beautiful about the world that makes it worth living

Never Look Away

Homecoming (Walter’s Song)

The Tower

AURORA ✨️🌙

Vibe: like frolicking barefoot in an early autumn wood with nymphs and fairies and harmonizing with the moon

Blood in the Wine

Runaway

Some Type of Skin

Amythyst Kiah 🪕🌇

Vibe: like whispered confessions that became declarations and using a banjo to try and discover who you are

Firewater

Chained to the Rhythm

Play God and Destroy the World

Mon Rovîa 🫂🌿

Vibe: like being told you’re not alone, and everything will be okay, just lay your head here and rest

City on a Hill

crooked the road.

To Watch the World Spin Without You

MALINDA 🏞💞

Vibe: like sitting by a river, following your dreams even though life is so so hard, and learning to love yourself

Love Letter

It's All True

Everything I Need

Enny Owl 🦉⛰️

Vibe: like hearing a forested mountainside sing you a lullaby as you lay in a bed of moss

Lifeboat

House on a Garden

Mother Earth

Please give these artists a try, they’re all incredible and deserve so much love! Share your favorite songs that aren’t about sex or romance in the tags and comments!

[notaplaceofhonour]

absolutely unhinged “Stabbed in the Back” libel shit. what parallel universe do you live in where you think Jews have been “silent” about ICE or human rights violations on the US border? bitch please

the idea that Jews as a people “turned their backs” on queer, BIPoC, & disabled people would be laughably stupid if it weren’t so incredibly insidious, not least of all because it erases the Jewish people, an indigenous tribe, of indigeneity (which is wildly anti-indigenous AND antisemitic) & some of us are queer, disabled, or otherwise BIPoC—but this is also textbook scapegoating, casting Jews in the role of Judas to justify cursing our name; all this asshole is missing is the mention of “30 pieces of silver”

congrats, we live in a global world: the US & US-based companies buy tech from companies in other countries, & vice versa; it isn’t uncommon for police depts & govt agencies to speak to those in other countries about strategies for how to do their jobs more effectively. Israel isn’t unique here, and blaming Israel for American police brutality because an Israeli group gave lectures on how to handle & de-escalate terror attacks & hostage crises to American police is unhinged—as is trying to act like a prison buying software from an AI & user experience company that happens to be in Israel has fuck all to do with either the Israeli government or Israeli Jews broadly (much less Jews elsewhere). it’s red yarn on a cork board shit.

and I don’t know what post this person hallucinated where I or anyone else supposedly talked about planning to “sell out” anyone, but that kind of accusation is par for the course for the rest of this person’s screed

also: good for you, you’re willing to be deported if Trump is president; who tf are you to make that decision for every other Hispanic person in America? who are you to force that on the millions of queer & disabled people in America? the fact this person is willing to put everyone else at risk because they’re personally willing to pay for it is self-centered & self-righteous as fuck

[weaselbeaselpants]

Want to say this outloud so that the rest of the tag+comunity knows it and knows it well: not all the Lily Orchard-critical blogs and people HAVE to be buddy-buds with each other. It's always nice to have unity and no-infighting but you need to understand we are all adults talking about how we and other people have been hurt/set-upon by her base, or even preyed on by Lily herself.

Barring shitty transphobes and KiwiFarms (I 100% get why someone would go there, espec when receipt trails are getting harder and harder to keep up and are reported as harassment in sites like this one; I personally wouldn't trust the farms and the bozos there to handle my info well or with good faith. Other people who are using farms for receipt-tracking? Sure. The Farms themself? Fuck no and fuck Null) and obviously predatory people in their own right like Zena and Poppy, we're here to tell our stories and make sure other people's stories get told. Beef, even particuarly ugly beef like accusing each other of dismissing ab*se, zionism, or being angry that we're on servers w people we don't like - it's valid to not be chummy and mad at each other. Still, none of that will ever make us what Lily (or Zena and Poppy) is.

Lily Orchard-

wrote CP (her 'Stockholm' series). It may not have involved real children so it's not punishable by law in many states/prefectures, but y'know writing graphic cp is not a good thing. Most annoying proshippers defend the semantics of 'drawn material' out of fear that those rules will be abused and used to silence non-vile art: BUT, they don't support it and they don't want it around;

also, Lily up and lied to her audience, first that she ever wrote Stockholm then that the videos were she admitted to writing it were deepfakes and that the fanfiction's graphic bits were edited in by bronies who were mad at her.

stole (ie. copy-pasted other people's writing) other people's words and passed them off as her own

CONSTANTLY talks over people of color and other queer people. I'm too damn white and not native to dictate if Lily is truly 'native' or not. What she does/say though in the name of fighting for other lgbtq and bipoc folk is really scummy.

and that's JUST the tip of the iceberg!! Lily-

had PatchworkHearts make graphic p0rn of her behind her[Lily's] partner's back, most of which Patchwork was not comfortable with making but did so out of desperation that Lily took advantage of, including drawing r@pe-bestiality of on of Lily's x's ocs.

is quite possibly is a serial sock-puppeteer; creating accounts to live out her darker fantasies. On the offchance that Tara Callie is somehow a real person, than that real person is vile as hell and was just as much (longer so) a friend of Lily's than she was Britt's, so it's cruel of Lily to act like Britt was complacent in Tara's crimes and not her.

has been accused of lying about medical ailments to get money from her audience.

immediately dumped ILoveKimPossiblealot for having the gall to talk to LIly's accusers and get their stories, rather than just take Lily's word.

keeps instinctively misgenders people and only stops when she gets any heat for it like she did to EssenceofThought. By contrast every one of her main critical blogs has not misgendered or deadnamed her, and the one who initially did has actively avoided deadnaming and misgendering her since.

in now deleted videos and older tumblr posts, told friends of abuse victims not to care about their abused friends and parents of incestuous siblings to accept their children's incest.

is being accused by her sibling of CSEM. Lily has said it's the other way around but then also draws her sibling as the darvo'd sister from an incest game, dismisses said siblings abuse at the hands of their half sibling because Lily 'loves' him, and also proudly has mentioned beating up said sibling and slying saying she 'ran off with a pedophile' at 17 as though being taken advantage of (I know, Courtney does not view said relationship like this) is the sibling's fault.

And that's all I could remember for a single post. Im going to go back and post links once this headache I'm suffering from is sated.

[enbycrip]

I need people to stop telling trans binary and nonbinary people who vent about their family forgetting or not using their pronouns or chosen names to “just cut them out of their lives if they can’t respect who you are”.

*Lots* of us are disabled. I really depend on help from my folks to manage my life when things are bad.

But, frankly, even if I didn’t - I’m not going to cut my folks, or the rest of my family, out of my life, because things they do hurt me. Because they do, sometimes right to the heart for things I don’t think they realise mean a lot to me, but that *doesn’t* stop me loving them. Nor them loving me. My folks are also right at the limit of their capacity caring for three people to different extents, and that doesn’t give them a lot of capacity to spare for learning or processing stuff they don’t necessarily see as all that important.

Trans folk, and disabled folk, which have a big crossover in the middle of the Venn Diagram there, are socially marginalised and isolated. Lots of trans and disabled people are literally cut out by their families for being who they are, and that is a big, big cause of marginalisation and isolation.

The idea that the rest of us should just do that to ourselves when people we love hurt us by not understanding who we are - and this stuff *isn’t* actually that easy to learn for people outside the queer, disabled or queer disabled communities if they’re not incredibly motivated to do so - is incredibly fucking damaging and, to be absolutely honest, a complete cop-out by people who are not willing to put up with the emotional labour of understanding that most lives are not simple, and marginalised people have to constantly deal with trade-offs in most areas.

I don’t remotely mean that people should put up with abuse if they have the capacity to leave that situation. But people need to expand their understanding to a) behaviour that hurts us is not necessarily the same as abuse, and b) marginalised people *are* frequently stuck in abusive situations, and this sort of absolute “leave or shut up” attitude people are so keen to put out online further traps and isolates marginalised people who are stuck, instead of giving them emotional support and, hopefully, physical and informational support too.

The idea that we can simply and easily withdraw from parts of our social network without it costing us something vital is incredibly privileged, and incredibly dangerous.

We talk so much in environmental and social movements about building community. We always talk about it in this purely positive light. I need people to start engaging with the fact that real, as opposed to idealised, community, is a multifaceted thing, and all the more so for people who are intersectionally marginalised - anywhere at the crossover point of queer, disabled, BIPOC, trans, neurodivergent, migrant, and other things. We are communal creatures by nature, but, frankly, capitalism has done a *lot* to break that up, and to prevent us from learning the skills of negotiation and existing in community as equitably as possible. And that includes in small communities like families.

Part of that, frankly, *is* letting people have vent spaces. Without necessarily jumping in to problem solve unless people *ask* for that. Venting is literally one of the ways that people move towards problem solving themselves - it not only lets them express emotion they may not have the space to express properly in the situation that’s causing it, but it starts letting them lay a situation out and put it in perspective. And online venting is great, tbh. It stops individual people from becoming sole venting spaces, the emotional labour of which falls disproportionately on women and femme-read people. And it means that, if you don’t have the spoons to hold that space for people, you can scroll by.

I absolutely do *not* find this stuff easy. At all. I am *way* too autistic for that. That’s why I work *hard* at this stuff.

We *need* communities. We are communal primates. It’s what we are and what we do. And, frankly, we need to get better at being in community with each other to build the future we need to survive. Capitalism and oligarchy has been far too fucking effective at pushing a narrative of individualism which ignores our responsibilities as humans - to each other and to the planet we live on. We need to learn to see the costs of isolation and being isolated, and learn the skills of supporting each other and negotiating with each other.

And, absolutely honestly, if someone *is* in a situation where they do need to walk away from a relationship (of any kind), they will be *so* much better able to do so if they have a community of genuine support from others around them.

[nkjemisin]

Things in my ask box #2

Got a new one for the “questions that might catch the poster some flak” bin. The poster asks, “What were you thinking when you wrote ‘The Ones Who Stay and Fight?’“ There was more to the question, but that’s what it boils down to (and I did clarify with the ask-er that this is what they wanted to know most).

I don’t generally like to discuss readers’ interpretations of my stories. Art is subjective, and what one person loves another might loathe, sometimes for the exact same reasons. Also, half the time I don’t even know what I’m doing; sometimes I don’t notice a theme in my work until years later when a reviewer mentions it, or I re-read it long after publication. My mind works in mysterious ways, even to me. But since you asked what I was thinking and not to confirm/deny a particular interpretation, I’ll try to explain.

(First, for those who haven’t read it, Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is her most famous short story, and probably one of the most famous short stories in the world. There’s a whole subgenre of responses to it, because it provokes such powerful reactions in readers, and I’m no exception. [I’m a huge fan of Le Guin, if you didn’t know from me screaming about her to anyone who would listen for like 10 years now.] If you haven’t read the story, you should; it’s probably available somewhere online. There are a million ways to interpret the story, and if you poke around for reviews or lit crit analyses you’ll find feminist readings, anti-capitalist readings, mythopoeic/folklorist readings, and more. My story does not make sense if you haven’t read her story; it functions solely in conversation with Le Guin’s. Think of it as fanfic, if that helps.)

I’m not a literary scholar and I don’t pretend to be, but I’ve always leaned into the anti-capitalist reading of “Omelas.” Anybody who’s reading this in the developed world is already living in Omelas. Every time we buy a pair of Nikes, we’re contributing to sweatshops, child labor, migration crises, pollution... our own version of the abused child locked in a cellar. No ethical consumption under capitalism. Also, I lean anti-capitalist with “Omelas” because I think often of this quote by Le Guin:

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

Bad. Ass. I want to be her when I grow up.

That said, when I decided to respond to this as a writer -- by writing back to it -- I was more interested in anti-racist readings of Omelas. Those interpretations don’t seem to be as popular, but at the time I wrote my story, I was trying to process the absolute bombardment of open racism and every other kind of bigotry that seemed to be metastasizing in the wake of Trump’s election. I pondered the world that these people seemed to want:  a world of war and endless suffering, doomed to end in extinction for us all (tho some believe Jesus or Jeff Bezos will whisk them away before things get too bad). I wondered what it would take to come back from that world, if we went down that path but managed to survive as a species. So to my mind, Omelas works well as a metaphor for conservatives’ (and fascists’) endless fantasies of the world that was, in which everything was wonderful before the “corruptions” of liberalism destroyed it -- corruptions like equality, diversity, intellectualism, religious freedom, and democracy. This is the “again” that the “make America great...” people embrace -- a “better” world that never existed. We all know that in the 1950s, there were plenty of kids in cellars, worse than today: BIPOC kids, queer kids, disabled kids, poor kids. If America’s wealthy and powerful get what they want, they will get to live in a utopian fantasy; the rest of us go in the cellar.

The society these people want is one that further-codifies the idea that some people are lesser. Some people aren’t as fully people, basically, and therefore don’t deserve rights, basic necessities, compassion, or life. Therefore I decided to make my “utopia” (scare quotes because, like Omelas, Um-Helat really isn’t) an anti-bigoted society, which has instead chosen to codify the idea that no one is lesser. Instead of its happiness depending on limited oppression, I wanted my “utopia” to depend on limited suppression of that insidious idea.

Suppression is no better than oppression, by the way. We’re used to oppression, so maybe it doesn’t seem so bad... to some. But both ways of maintaining these not-quite-utopias require harm to be done to some for the benefit of others. Omelas chose to limit the harm to a random child, and to a lesser degree to all its citizens, who must morally compromise themselves in order to enjoy their lives. Um-Helat chooses to limit the harm to those who’ve internalized some people are lesser -- the intolerant, per Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance -- and to the “social workers,” who must morally compromise themselves in order for the other citizens of Um-Helat to thrive. I was also playing with the idea that there’s nowhere to walk away to. Imperialism and capitalism have made pretty much the whole world Omelas, in real life. So how does any society grapple with its own complicity with evil? Omelas is better off than our own world, and Um-Helat, because people can walk away, there.

It’s entirely possible that I failed to do what I tried to do with this story -- first because I tried to do so much. “Omelas” is a deceptively simple argument with deep, complex points being made; my attempt to answer had to cover a lot of territory. Second because Le Guin was a master of the short form, while I’m pretty much a dabbler, and third because this was also my first time trying pastiche, and it probably shows. But I believe in shooting my literary shot, hit or miss, and I’m glad that I did. It turned out better than I expected.

So that’s what I was thinking. ☺️

[eternalbuckley]

Get some rest. — george weasley

SUMMARY: You haven't slept a lot in the past days because you're working on an art project and George reminds you to take some rest. Basically he comforts you and is there for you <3. — check out the request!

word count: 605

genre: fluff, comfort | gn!reader, queer!reader, bipoc!reader and plus-size!reader friendly

warnings: mention about not having slept enough (reader shakes a bit), use of pet name (my darling), english is not my first language, not proofread — if I forgot something, please let me know!

a/n: i chose to add another prompt from this list as well (fluff - 07. - "Get some rest, you work too hard.")

disclaimer: please do not repost or try and take ownership of my work or post this anywhere without my consent. do not translate my work and post it anywhere — i give you no permission to do that. i only post my stories here, so if you find my work anywhere else please let me know! reblogs, likes and comments are appreciated and welcomed!

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ 1k celebration | navigation | masterlists | taglist

It has been quite an exhausting week for you. You had been awake until the sun was already rising again and only got a few hours of sleep before you went back, trying to finish your current art project. You were determined to finish it as soon as possible but you forgot to sleep or eat unless George would come up to you and remind you of these things. “Only this last one” You would always tell him and still ended up standing and sitting in front of your project hours later. You were soon finished and just wanted to get it done by now.

There were only a few last finishing touches left but nothing wanted to work in your favour this night. You kept cursing to yourself and cried out of frustration. You were too exhausted but also too stubborn to stop and get some rest. George came home a few hours ago and you promised him, you would be done an hour later. It had been three hours since then and the sun was setting already. You sighed to yourself and saw your hands shaking from sleeping not enough the past days. That’s when your boyfriend came up behind you, with caution and gently put his arms around you. He nuzzled his face into your neck and asked you if you were already done.

“Not yet,” you sighed and paused for a moment to lean into his touch. You closed your eyes, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it done tonight.”

“It looks good, my darling. But you need to get some rest, you’re shaking,” he slowly rocked his body with yours and you hummed.

“I can’t,” you sighed. Your stubbornness or eagerness, however you want to call it, were speaking for you. You put your hands on his arms and took a moment to breathe.

George moved his head from your neck to kiss the top of your head and rest his on top of yours. “Get some rest, darling, you work too hard. You can finish it tomorrow after you get some rest and well-deserved sleep.”

You didn’t want to but you knew he was right and slowly nodded. “You’re right,” you put down the material and turned around to wrap your arms around your boyfriend who gladly hugged you back.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that?” He whispered as he continued to rock your body. You smiled into his chest and were more than thankful to have him looking after you when you could tend to forget it.

You two stood like this for a few moments until your stomach grumbled, signalling that you were hungry. George slightly chuckled.

“If you want to eat something I made you something of your favourite food.”

You pulled away from him with a happy expression, “You should get an award for being the best boyfriend.”

He laughed and kissed your cheek as you two made your way to the kitchen to get something to eat. After you were done with eating you yawned tiredly and made your way to bed. Falling onto your shared bed and almost immediately falling asleep, completely forgetting to change into your nightwear. In the meanwhile, George cleaned the kitchen and came to your bedroom after he was done. He entered your bedroom and already saw you cuddled into your blanket and his pillow. You were blissfully sleeping after days of hard work. George smiled at the scene in front of him, kissed your forehead and laid down next to you. And made sure you were comfortable and shortly fell asleep after you.

[hussyknee]

Regular reminder that if you don't live in the Global North, nothing they have to say applies to the rest of us. Actually most things they say have little value anyway since the Global South and Eastern folks are afterthoughts to them, much less center us in their social justice.

- The USAmerican cultural hegemony has fuck all to do with us. Be aware of what they're trying to peddle you, but they have more power to harm and radicalise you than you have ever could to harm them. This applies to both the Western left and right wing. They are both equally racist, colonial and imperialist.

- Global North issues around capitalism, exploitation and piracy have nothing to do with us. Consumer activism might work to some extent over there idk, but if anyone brings it up over in the lands of the Black and brown people, you can laugh them out of the country.

- Their queer history is not ours. Congrats to Stonewall and all but that's just some shit that happened in the US. We need to dig past 18 different strata of cultural genocide and colonial garbage to mine our queer histories back into the light, and designing microlabel flags and fighting over colonizer language acronyms have fuck all to do with that either.

- Always pirate everything within reach. Save up and buy from authors and creators you really like (that's what I do – esp when it's a BIPOC creator), but people who can't afford to buy shit in the first place ain't stealing food out of anybody's mouths. Pirating is praxis and always has been since the days of the East India Company.

- Don't buy into the USAmerican theories of race. They aren't universal. "BIPOC" especially is a USAmerican specific term, it is not used in the UK or other settler colonies. Constructs of race and the tribal Other far predated European colonization; race as a colour system that exists today is simply one variation of it. The global apartheid against the mellanated takes many forms, histories and terminology. There are especially no "people of colour" in Asia, Africa, Caribbean and Polynesia. There are only people who live there, and "people of white".

Race is a fake, made-up conceptualization imposed by whoever has power within each region. It's ethnic, cultural and casteist, with no biological basis whatsoever. There is no uniformity, no universalism, no rhyme nor reason to any of it; the only people who know exactly who doesn't belong are the oppressors. I'm seeing concepts like "unambiguously black" floating around the terminally online Western left; any dark-skinned person of the Global South should split their sides laughing at it. Whites have no ambiguity on who the darkies are.

- Read, watch, listen to, play whatever the hell you want, just have the sense to pirate it, and to be very conscious about the narratives they try to smuggle.

- When the US and UK speak, listen with compassionate interest, offer what solidarity you can spare for their downtrodden, and then go back to reading and following your own fucking news. Focus on our own women's and reproductive rights, trans rights, queer histories, rise of fascism, militarisation, anti-blackness, class warfare, nationalist violence, imperialism etc. That is decolonization, that is emancipation from the Western cultural hegemony. Everything else is the bread and circuses of empire, in which both the left and right wing of the West are complicit.

We owe the Global North nothing more than we can each individually afford to extend to them on grounds of common human decency and compassion. Which is a lot more than they will ever reciprocate.

[lazaefair]

A few reminders:

1) The dreaded apocalyptic future is not inevitable. You're in the same position as a time traveler from one of those apocalyptic futures jumping back to try to change the timeline in the hope that they can prevent it. Think of it like you're in a cool sci-fi adventure instead of a shitty grimdark edgelord production. You can help rewrite the bad ending.

2) The odds are steep. Which is why the only way to stand up to an overwhelming system of malice and ignorance is to stay and fight it together, using our diverse skillsets and resources to utilize all the approaches and tools at our disposal - whether peaceful or confrontational, short-term or long-term. Solidarity and strength in numbers may be enough to avert the worst-case scenarios. If enough of you choose to run and abandon the rest of us who can't or won't run, you deprive us of your strength and then the dreaded apocalyptic future is more likely to happen.

3) Still want to run away? There isn't really anywhere for you to run away to anymore: **3a) The "safe" socialist/liberal countries don't want Americans specifically, and in general aren't open to increased asylum or immigration that would put more strain on their systems. None of them are particularly welcoming to non-white émigrés either, because **3b) All the "safe" socialist/liberal countries in the Global North got their wealth through exploiting the Global South, are still exploiting the Global South (including Global South populations living within their borders), and still have that colonialist mindset deeply embedded in their societies. **3c) Which means all of them are also contending with the same conservative reactionaries and far-right extremists seeking to dismantle those nice, safe socialist programs and liberal philosophies, to varying degrees of success.

But the really big one: 4) Even if you found that imaginary perfect progressive society that would take you? You'd still be living on the same planet as the rest of us, with the same rising temperatures, rising seas, and rising pollution.

Might as well stay and fight, tbh.

Makeup look composed of only queer/BIPOC brands:

M2U NYC - liquid eyeliner on eyes

We Are Fluide - red gloss on eyes; bronze gloss on cheeks

Cheekbone Beauty - two highlighters (from the OG Stardust palette!) on cheeks, nose, and cupid's bow

UOMA Beauty - red matte lipstick on lips

Indigenous Cosmetics - red glitter cream. (This stuff is intense. It picked up and spread beautifully on my fingertips like any other cream eyeshadow, with absolutely no fallout, and I could well believe that it would last at least as long as a long-wear shadow. That said, getting it off involved quadruple cleansing with an oil-based balm, a waterproof eye makeup remover, a Makeup Eraser AND a regular washcloth…and I still have glitter lurking on my cheeks. To be fair, I knew what I was signing up for when I put it on.)