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anexperimentallife · 3 months

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The US far right has been working on their plan since AT LEAST the 1960s, when I was a kid listening to evangelicals talking about their plan to take over the US, and eventually the world. It's called "Christian Dominionism," and it's a fascist ideology which goes hand in glove with the GOP's plans.

Although it was not expressed so much to the world at large, this plan was OPENLY and FREQUENTLY discussed in far right circles. We kids, if we asked about it, were told that it was "God's Will." Ask any exvangelical about it, and they'll confirm. (Part of why I know so much about these dangerous and deluded folks is I WAS ONE OF THEM in my youth.)

And where has that plan gotten them? Well, the GOP recently released a hundreds of pages long document filled with their intentions if they win--including a nationwide abortion ban and a repeal of anti-discrimination laws, among other things.

Trump has already signaled his intent to create a military dictatorship if elected, by repealing laws against using the military against US citizens on US soil sp he can deploy them against dissenters, etc., and if the GOP pick up a few more congressional seats, he can do it. The GOP has already pushed to repeal presidential term limits, and Trump has indicated he'd like to be president for life.

So I'm amazed at all the people who think withholding their vote and letting the GOP win is going to somehow fix things and "push the Dems left."

You wanna know how to push US politics leftward? You're not gonna like it, because it takes actual work beyond stomping your foot and pouting and performatively showing everyone how "pure" you are by refusing to vote.

You have to start the same way the far right did (and again, they've been OPENLY talking about and pursuing this plan since I was a kid in the 1960s, AT LEAST)--they started by getting the most extreme right wingers they possibly could into any position they could. Positions like school board member, police chief, sherrif, city prosecuter, city council member, municipal judge, mayor, governor, hell, fucking dog catcher.

They encouraged far right extremists to become police officers and military personnel and work their way up the ranks to the point at which even the famously-racist FBI reported that major city police departments across the nation were pretty much taken over by members of white supremacist organizations.

In formerly reasonable churches, right wingers pushed for the hiring and training of more and more right wing pastors and mire right-wing theology.

More affluent right-wingers bought local papers and broadcasters, and as their political power grew, they changed laws to make it easier for a single entity to control the news--until now a mere handful of entities own nearly every major media outlet in the US.

And then they used every victory as leverage for the next one, and worked their way up. I mean, there's more, like the capitalization on economic and social anxiety and their inentional exacerbation of same so they could take advantage of it, but that's intertwined with the rest.

Essentially, they got this far because they put the work in.

If the US left is going to turn things around (and if it's not already too late), we've got to do the same, but it takes RESEARCHING and PROMOTING your local and state candidates, attending city council and school board meetings, and shit like that. It's actual fucking work to fix a country.

And then, after you've done all that--and after you've shown up to primaries to try to get any non-authoritarian leftist candidate you can nominated--then you vote for the leftest folks you're able to in the general. If there are no remotely leftist candidates, you vote for the centrist or right winger who will do the least damage.

Again, that's what the US far right has been doing for decades. Taking action. Wherever possible, taking new ground, but when they couldn't do that, ceding as little ground as possible. If they couldn't win, they made damn sure to do everything in their power to try to keep actual decent human beings from winning.

Actually doing the work doesn't have the emotional satisfaction of a grand gesture, but it definitely shows who is serious about making a difference and who would rather let everything burn than sully their imagined purity by voting for anything less than perfection.

Listen, Trump is not going to end the genocide in Gaza--in fact he increased tensions between the Israeli occupation and Palestine. And the GOP will never be persuaded. Hell, they want to let Russia take Ukraine and declare open season on asylum seekers.

The Dems suck. But the GOP is far, far worse, and will do MORE damage, and kill FAR MORE innocents. And if allowed to do so, will make it even harder to change the system than it is now. They've already PUBLICLY ADMITTED that their only chance of victory is keeping people from voting. Don't play into their hands.

Under current circumstances, you know what the Dems are going to do if Biden and a bunch of other Dems lose for not being pure enough? You think they'll be all like, "Oh, no! The left sure taught us a lesson by handing the country to the GOP! We'd better shift to the left!"

No. They're going to sip champagne in their multi-million dollar mansions and have meetings about how they need to move FURTHER RIGHT to win elections, because the left doesn't vote.

And if the US becomes a military dictatorship, most of the high ranking ones will simply take their fortunes and leave.

Yup, it'd sure teach ol' Joe a lesson to force him to spend the rest of his days sipping cocktails on the Riviera.

Look beyond the single battle and think strategically. That's how the GOP keeps gaining power. And refusing to act strategically is why the left is losing. We cannot take the hill we want right now. But if we lose the hills we've already taken, we risk losing the entire goddamn war.

So fucking vote. Work to get every leftist you can in any office you can. And if you can't do that, support the one who will do the least harm.

And if it takes voting for that shitbag Biden to keep Trump and the GOP out, hold your fucking nose and pull the goddamn lever.

#rob gets political

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coolaboutlucy · 3 months

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Not they tryna reenact KOSA… anyway yall, here’s why KOSA is bad!!

If you don’t already know, KOSA, or Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that was proposed to keep children safe on the internet. You might ask ‘why is this bill bad if it’s in favor of supporting the safety of children online’? Well, according to stopkosa.com, it puts pressure on platforms to add even MORE filters on anything they think is inappropriate for children. This is especially harmful for LBGTQIA+ youth because the knowledge about this topic would be censored, as well as knowledge on suicide prevention and LGBTQIA+ support groups. Do you see how this an issue? For those children who are wanting to learn more about these topics they’d be turned away because of this bill. It would also be likely that it’ll allow the shutdown of websites that allow them to learn about race, sexuality and gender.

This bill would also add more internet surveillance for all users across all social media platforms. It would expand the use of age verification and parental monitoring controls. These things in itself are already very invasive, but doesn’t take into consideration the children who live in unsafe environments where they are domestically abused and/or are trying to escape these situations. To add my two cents onto this, I strongly believe that the KOSA bill is an unnecessary violation of our first amendment rights (if you’re American), and doesn’t really make the internet any more safer. It actually makes it more unusable for youth. Hypothetically, if this bill were to be passed, then this would make social media unusable for literally anybody. To censor content from the youth about wanting to learn about their identity is extremely harmful. Blocking them from accessing resources that may prove as helpful in their scenarios is outlandish and unneeded. We try to shelter our youth so much to the point where we try to boil them down to only being with their parents want them to be and also not being able to let them learn and explore about other things that they may want to identify themselves with. This is very harmful.

This is a list of companies who are saying no to KOSA ..

• Access Now

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

• Black and Pink National

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• COLAGE

• Defending Rights & Dissent

• Don’t Delete Art

• EducateUS: SIECUS In Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Equality Arizona

• Equality California

• Equality Michigan

• Equality New Mexico

• Equality Texas

• Fair Wisconsin

• Fairness Campaign

• Fight for the Future

• Free Speech Coalition

• Freedom Network USA

• Indivisible Eastside

• Indivisible Plus Washington

• Internet Society

• Kairos

• Lexington Pride Center

• LGBT Technology Partnership

• Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

• Media Justice

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• Open Technology Institute

• OutNebraska

• PDX Privacy

• Presente.org

• Reframe Health and Justice

• Restore The Fourth

• SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

• SWOP Behind Bars

• TAKE

• TechFreedom

• The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc.

• The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

• Transgender Education Network of Texas

• TransOhio

• University of Michigan Dearborn – Muslim Student Association

• URGE

• WA People’s Privacy

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation

There is something you can do to stop the KOSA bill from being passed! On the website I linked, there is a petition. All you have to do is fill out the information and it’ll send off an email for you. The email reads as follows:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

The website also gives you like a format of what you can say if you chose to call your representatives. If after reading this post, you feel inclined to do something then I would say just go ahead and do it. My first time learning about KOSA was today immediately after seeing the post I felt inclined to send my lawmakers an email. Please try to help when you can and this will only take a few minutes so I think this is something that you can consider. This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll stop here. There are more resources online if you would like to learn more about the cons of this KOSA bill, thank you for reading.

#wlfabby #fuck kosa #kosa #internet censorship #stop kosa #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #laws #stop this bill from being passed. 🙏

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novafire-is-thinking · 1 year

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Cybertronian Color Psychology

I wasn’t planning to write an essay on Cybertronians and color psychology just yet, but here I am doing just that, thanks to a recent discussion with @onewingedsparrow.

Basically, my thinking revolves around what kinds of meanings Cybertronians might have assigned to certain colors and how they differ from human color associations. We already know that colors can mean entirely different things to different human cultures (e.g. black and white can both be associated with death depending on where you come from).

My best speculative example for Cybertronians is purple. Before I continue, keep in mind that I’m ignoring the fact that purple is a common color used for villains in fiction because that’s boring and doesn’t leave much room for deeper implications.

Megatron’s Favorite Color

When looking at human color psychology, purple is often associated with things like Imagination, Mystery, Royalty, and Spirituality. Darker shades are closely tied to different emotions and traits than are lighter shades, but as a general rule, purple is more “mystical” and abstract than a color such as green, which is more grounded and earthy.

Now, I point to the trend of Megatron and his Decepticons choosing to adorn themselves and/or their spaces with purple.

I agree 100%, Megatron.

Despite Megatron’s reputation of ruthlessness and using force and power of will to make progress, he’s often also portrayed as a charismatic individual with an affinity for wielding words in beautiful ways that capture and hold a listener’s attention—a poet in his own way. Megatron may be loud and threatening, but he’s also strategically minded; words and actions carry weight and intentionality.

What does this have to do with color? Well, I like to think that Megatron chose purple as the chief color of the Decepticon cause for a reason. I’ll present two likely possibilities.

Possibility #1:

Perhaps he chose purple because on Cybertron, or at least in his region of origin, purple was/is associated with things like Vision, Change, Power, and Rebirth—things the Decepticon movement was originally meant to embody. Both he and Soundwave—his most loyal ally and companion—have been shown to bear the color purple in multiple continuities, even if only on the Decepticon insignia.

Possibility #2:

Purple could have been a color often associated with the highest castes (similar to it’s association with earth royalty). This would mean that Megatron’s choice of color was more an act of defiance, knowing that those in Cybertron’s higher castes would be livid, or at least shocked at the sight of him and his “lowly” Decepticon dissenters flaunting the color so boldly. Of course, by the end of the war, Megatron would have effectively changed Cybertron’s deeply rooted cultural perception of the color purple forever. But even if this were the case, the color would still end up associated with Vision, Change, Power, and Rebirth.

Other Possible Cybertronian Color Associations:

(and several bots who don the colors and happen to embody some or all of the characteristics—all of which are positive since I don’t have the patience to identify and list the negative ones even though they absolutely would exist)

Red: Grandeur, Swiftness of mind and/or body, Discovery, Fearlessness

Optimus (multiple continuities)

Starscream (multiple continuities)

Rodimus/Hot Rod (IDW & Cyberverse)

Drift (IDW)

Perceptor (IDW)

Windblade (IDW & RiD 2015)

Knockout (TFP)

Blue: Knowledge/Intellect, Wisdom, Sacrifice, Honor, Creativity

Optimus (multiple continuities)

Dreadwing (TFP)

Arcee (TFP)

Ultra Magnus (TFP & IDW)

Kup (IDW)

Skids (IDW)

Brainstorm (IDW)

Green: Endurance, Steadfastness, Brotherhood, Youthfulness

Bulkhead (TFP & TFA)

Skyquake (TFP)

Boulder (Rescue Bots)

Springer (IDW*)

Hoist (IDW*)

Cosmos (IDW* & Cyberverse)

Constructicons (multiple continuities)

*I haven’t read all of IDW 1 yet and have only seen these characters a handful of times, so these correlations may be off.

Of course, not all Cybertronians of a certain color fit the listed traits or would even bother to wear a color because of any cultural associations. I’m just looking at overarching patterns and generalizing.

TL;DR It’s reasonable to believe that Cybertronian color psychology differs at least somewhat from human color psychology. Also, Decepticon purple is a thing, most likely due to Megatron and his not-so-secret poetic side.

[EDIT] Still thinking about this 4+ hours later, and I JUST realized that I totally forgot about Spectralism:

I beg thy forgiveness, Drift. I promise Spectralism holds a special place in my inner archive of beautiful and intriguing ideas to ponder. My tired brain just had a memory lapse.

^ [context: Rodimus chose purple and blue as his new colors.] Yes, Megatron is a warlord with a long history of violence. No, he’s not and never has been a Spectralist. These meanings are most likely coincidental. However, it would definitely be extra interesting if Megatron were a practicing Spectralist.

Drift’s explanation above is an excellent example of color association in a religious context, separate from mainstream culture’s assigned meanings.

My knowledge of world religions and the significance each places on certain colors is limited, but those details are secondary to the main point—that color associations vary widely between earth cultures and religions and the same is certainly true for Cybertron, as Drift’s revelation implies.

I would love to see a future TF writer expand upon Spectralism in canon for a future comic or other media. Fanart would be taken to a whole new level. ✨ Colors always have had and always will have meaning, people. And I’m over here going nuts over the potential implications those diverse and multi-layered associations could have for a species with colors embedded in their very bodies.

Now I’m chuckling at myself because I’m realizing how much I sound like Drift with this entire post. Speculating about color—yeah, Drift and I would get along just fine. *wistful sigh* I think I need to sleep.

#the fact that I share a favorite color with Megatron of all bots has been on my mind a lot recently #so naturally I began building a whole theory around the color and Cybertronian color psychology as a whole #transformers #tf analysis #transformers prime #tfp analysis #idw transformers #tf idw #tf idw analysis #maccadam #cybertronian culture #what if: cross continuity edition #nova’s nerding out again #long post

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morallyinept · 2 months

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Shoot: The Rake Magazine, October 2016, Issue 48

Photographer: Anders Overgaard

Interviewer: Tom Chamberlin

Grooming: Jessica Ortiz

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Cover shot and original images used in the magazine

• Outtakes and behind the scenes images.

• Full Interview

As a stickler for timing, it was a tad disconcerting for me that half an hour into an hour-long interview, Pedro Pascal was still barely a year old. The family history of this actor is a story in itself, one that Pedro intends to write one day.

Happily, Pedro was very generous with his time, and, as with our photoshoot at The Carlyle Hotel in New York, and with every role he has played, he understands the difference between a hash-job and a job well done. Perhaps this is why Pedro will be on screen pretty much non-stop for the next year and is fast building an enviable C.V.

His roles as a protagonist span big-budget Hollywood movies and the finer works of subscription television, namely Game of Thrones and Narcos, whose second series is currently available on Netflix. It turns out he is also the epitome of America: an immigrant who has taken his talent and ambition and made a success of himself in a country that takes people in and gives them a chance to succeed. And The Rake was given the opportunity of an in-depth discussion with this star player.

I should firstly elaborate on the extraordinary tale of his early life. His family name is Balmaceda, his father is a doctor, and his late mother (whose maiden name was Pascal) welcomed José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal into the world on April 2, 1975 in Santiago, Chile. Those of you familiar with the South American governments of the time will know that this was not a simple epoch in which to be born in Chile. It was less than two years since Augusto Pinochet had deposed Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected head of state in Chile, in a coup d’état. Allende killed himself in the coup but his supporters remained a thorn in the junta’s side. So, as any self-respecting dictator would, Pinochet found opposition members, rounded them up, and tortured them for information on other dissenters who could be found, rounded up, and so on.

One such occasion was some years later, when our cover star enters the fray. A cousin of Pascal’s mother was Andrés Pascal Allende, a powerful revolutionary and supporter of his uncle. One day, during a gunfight, this freedom fighter would be given medical aid and shelter chez Balmaceda, and it would be this gesture that put the family on the ‘list’. Pedro recalls (through no memory of his own but that of his father’s) that, “the Pascal family wasn’t particularly safe." He adds: “There was a priest who was brought [Andrés], who had been shot in the leg, to my mum and dad’s house. My father took him in, hid them for a few days, and patched up his leg. I was a baby, my sister was just three, and she says she has a vague memory of being really angry that our parents had put strangers’shit in her bedroom, including guns and stuff.”

The innocence of youth! But the story becomes more and more like a Bourne movie: “The priest was taken into custody and tortured; he gave names, and they went looking for my father at the hospital he worked at. By chance it got to him that they were downstairs, asking where to find Dr. José Balmaceda. My father sneaks out the back and gets my mum, his sister gets my sister and me. They work out that their only option is to go into hiding, which they do for about six months, and they end up sneaking into the Venezuelan embassy and sought asylum.”

You can see why we spent so long on the subject. His light-hearted approach to talking about this may be because he was too young (about nine months old when they came out of hiding) to have been affected by the process, but there is pride in his parents’ actions, the way in which they carried him and his sister to safety in a climate in which even children were not safe. The solution wasn’t ‘doing an Assange’ and locking themselves in the embassy - they had to leave.

Though they would ultimately settle in the United States, it was Denmark that took them in first. Pascal was still too young to recall a great deal; after a year his father was contacted by a Chilean professor in San Antonio, Texas, and was offered a job. San Antonio was a great place for South American immigrants. With a large Spanish-speaking population, it wasn’t as much of a departure, or culture shock, for the family as Denmark had been.

They lived there until 1986, and it was during this time that he developed a love of movies and the desire to become an actor. He says of that time: “Strangely it was my father’s fault, because he was a huge moviegoer and he would take us to the movies a few times a week throughout my childhood. Of course, we got cable television and HBO came into the fold. Uncensored, uninterrupted movies in your living room: it was some kind of fucking miracle. I remember sitting there and it feeling like absolute magic to me. I remember perfectly watching my first movie on HBO and thinking it was magic.”

While television was developing its appeal, cinema was the family craze, and his father was the most zealous disciple. Pascal adds: “I am telling you, we would go several times a week. And it wouldn’t matter, if my dad wanted to see a movie, and there wasn’t a babysitter, we would go with him or he’d just want to take us. It is my father and Steven Spielberg’s fault - Spielberg being the ruling aesthetic of Hollywood at that time. Throw MTV and Nickelodeon into the mix, and public school systems in San Antonio and very cool parents - these were socialising us and forming us. It is in such stark contrast to what it would be in Chile. In Chile I have 34 first cousins. And in Texas it was just us.”

Though he is a self-confessed “dork”, his hinting at loneliness, and his circumstances as an immigrant in a poor neighbourhood in San Antonio being a psychological burden, is an interesting passage through which he developed his sense of imagination, fantasy and the requisite skills as an actor. “I spent so much time alone and I wasn’t allowed to watch cable from morning into night, so my options were me and my imagination and it was all so completely ruled by the idea of being on these movie adventures,” he says. “I remember seeing Rambo and The Big Chill. I was fascinated by [The Big Chill], as JoBeth Williams was the mother in Poltergeist, which I had seen seven times already in the movie theatre, and I was shouting, ‘That’s the mum from Poltergeist, this movie is amazing!’ I was a big reader as well. I read Stephen King from a very young age.” He tellingly concludes that movies “ruled my imagination and to an extent my identity."

His isolation grew when his father moved the family to California when Pedro was 11. His father was part of a team of fertility experts that had pioneered an advanced form of I.V.F. called gamete intra-fallopian transfer, or GIFT. But this move took him away from a Spanish-speaking neighbourhood and into Newport Beach, Orange County, “which is about a 99.9 per cent white town." He found it hard to fit in, though not because of how he looked. “It was more a matter of me being a nerd and a movie geek and not a good surfer and interested in art,” he says. “I already knew I wanted to be an actor.” His determination had been made manifest by spending his free time reading plays and going to see Search and Destroy by Howard Korder at the South Coast Repertory, which left him “fucking floored."

This problematic period in his youth might explain why he decided to move to the other side of the country, to New York City, to study theatre, where his inclination to academia was compromised by metropolitan life. He says: “Once I made it to New York I wasn’t reading the things I was supposed to read. I was a terrible student.” The Tisch School of the Arts, a school with an impressive list of alumni, including Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin and Billy Crystal, nevertheless provided a stable platform for him to pursue his acting ambitions. He could break out from being the little child in a strange town and muck in with like-minded people in a city founded on immigration and pluralism.

This time in his life ushered in the beginning of a long-standing friendship with American Horror Story and (gravely underappreciated) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip star Sarah Paulson. Pedro’s charisma made it very easy to become friends with him, Paulson tells The Rake, explaining that it was a “just-add-water friendship." What drew her to Pedro, she adds, was that “he had an enormous amount of gravitas and at the same time a great deal of levity. He would be the first person to fall on the floor laughing.”

After Tisch he found himself working plenty in theatre, too. One particular play, Beauty of the Father, at the Manhattan Theatre Club would begin another friendship with an acting luminary, Star Wars and Ex Machina star Oscar Isaac. Isaac told The Rake, in regards to both of them achieving recognition around the same time and at similar ages: “We started off-Broadway, so for both of us it has been a parallel path where we have been treading the boards together and facing a lot of uphill climbing and rejection and trying to make a living here in New York. To be able to go on that journey together and for me to be able to see him explode on to the scene, I couldn’t be prouder of him.” He says of Pedro: “He is someone who has a very profound depth to him. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he has a great mind and incredible empathy, and he is also incredibly sharp-witted and fun to be around.”

Pascal would find that achieving the kind of success he had imagined was to be parked while he worked solely to support himself. He did the rounds, doing irregular slots on long-running U.S. television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Without a Trace and CSI. He says: “The idea of experiencing exposure or being on the cover of a magazine like The Rake was totally abandoned at a certain point well into my thirties, once I’d learnt how to live and support myself as an actor and be unknown outside a small community. I had come to terms with the idea of just hoping to work.” This is the fate of 90 per cent of actors who graduate from drama schools, and frankly the realisation and acceptance of living a life in which you support yourself with work speaks to a very grounded, grateful and pragmatic individual.

Fortunately for us, his prospects soon changed.

In 2014 he appeared in the world’s biggest T.V. show since Friends, Game of Thrones. It was the fourth series that saw the arrival of a new kind of Alpha male in a series with no shortage of them. Pascal played Oberyn Martell, the Prince of Dorne. However, where Charles Dance’s anti-hero ne plus ultra Tywin Lannister commanded the ‘patriarchy’ side of masculinity, and there was the brutish, drinking and farting muscle mass that was Rory McCann as The Hound, Pascal’s Oberyn was a more complex and interesting personification of masculinity and sexuality. Oberyn was affecting from the start, and even before we see Pascal’s incarnation he is described as “not a man for welcome parties” who is famous for “fucking half of Westeros."

His demeanour was a refreshing change to the grimy, armour-clad male leads that were a mainstay of the storyline: colourful, well-groomed, softly spoken yet threatening. You get an idea of the nature of the character from Tyrion Lannister’s face (threatened, anxious) when he discovers who had come from Dorne for the royal wedding. Then, when we meet Oberyn, in long, elegant robes of mustard and gold, there is a menace and intent; the audience salivates as it waits to find out what he is capable of. And we are kept waiting. What is most interesting about Oberyn is that his lust is not limited to the fairer sex. Oberyn is a sexual omnivore: he has what he describes as his paramour, Ellaria Sand (played by Indira Varma), who acts as both angel and devil on his shoulders, reminding him that he can take whatever he wants.

His fluid sexuality is culturally under-represented in film, television and certainly music. The co-creators of the show, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, have used the fantastical setting of Westeros to curate a fascinating experiment into what a ‘man’ really is and how audiences react to sexual behaviour. It is not controversial to say that even hinting at homosexual tendencies can put off a chunk of the male audience, sad as that may be. The fact that Oberyn is convincing as masculine, strong and fierce, without any suggestion that his sexuality will undermine his masculinity for the audience, is a real feat in developing cultural norms. It is a benchmark for progressive leading men, and considering the success of this one, we hope there is more to follow.

Not only is Oberyn bisexual, he is openly so. His arrogance and comfort with himself means that he needn’t hide it like many other characters in the series do. Pascal says: “It’s fucking hilarious because straight guys fucking love Oberyn. In talking to D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, I was really surprised to hear that through the audition process there were takes on Oberyn that, because in the audition scene it is revealed that he includes a man in the mix of his orgy and reveals himself to be bisexual, they would immediately interpret him as more effeminate and add that quality to the character. What had been so right for them was my not having done that. It is interesting because it never even occurred to me that he wouldn’t be so completely male and have the quality of something Alpha and archetypically masculine. It made complete sense that the world was his and every part of it was his, and everything he wanted to partake of, it is very much in the writing.”

Benioff took the time to speak to The Rake to lend some words of praise to Pascal. He says: “It was a very difficult part to cast because [Oberyn] encompasses so many contradictions: he is charismatic, he is ferocious, he is sexy, but also he can be quiet and intimate. It can be very hard to find someone who can do everything. He can be hard to pin down because he is so multi- faceted. A big problem was that no one felt quite sexy enough.”

And then along comes our cover star, who “did a very cheap video on his iPhone. It couldn’t have been more low-rent, but it was incredibly compelling. It’s interesting, as it’s not that we had a particular look at the time. We didn’t know what we wanted until we saw it, and with Pedro it was pretty clear.” He adds of Pedro’s interpretation: “He brought a sense of humour to the part. There’s something fun about someone with a sense of humour who is utterly fearless. There is also something a little insane about that.”

Pedro enjoyed the rakish side of his character; the costume designer Michele Clapton helped him tap into the character’s braggadocio. He says: “Stylistically, what Michele did, I’m never going to look that good again. I mean, that fucking mustard robe with the leather belt and sometimes a sash. These are all feminine garbs that could not have been more masculine. It made me feel so powerful and male.”

Pedro waxes lyrical about his employers on Game of Thrones: “To be honest with you, my take on the part had everything to do with what was on the page. I looked up Oberyn in the books and it’s all told through the perspective of Tyrion Lannister - it’s a very cool character, but the way David and Dan [Weiss] fleshed him out on the show was a pure set-up for success for me. I give all credit to them: it was their idea to create a progressive, radical badass that two straight married men have a crush on. You could tell they loved this guy. That was why it ended up being so good, and I understand that it could have gone in the wrong direction by being interpreted differently, but I didn’t see it in any other way.”

The demise of Oberyn was the first time in four years I wanted to pack in watching the series. There was a sense of having had enough with the show for not giving me enough of this character. They held back on how exciting Oberyn could be, with his athleticism and the insouciant cool of fighting a man wielding a sword that was, as Pedro puts it, “quite literally my height” - and, of course, the way in which he ‘dispatched’ him. Going from that high of poetic justice - from being everyone’s favourite spear-wielding hero - to the crushing low of the red-porridge mess of his head crushed on the floor in the space of five minutes was genius television making; never was an audience so crushed as well.

Even Pedro hated it.

When I shared with him my frustration, he related by saying: “Yes, because it feels terrible. Why should I go to bed with this horrific feeling in my heart? I love that people felt that way about Oberyn because I had felt that way about the Red Wedding (a shocking scene in which several major characters were killed off at a wedding feast). I almost stopped. I was in the process of auditioning for Oberyn and I had already had my heart crushed. I remember thinking very specifically, ‘Soon it’s time for bed and I’m in a place of such darkness because of watching television - this isn’t good for me’.”

Fortunately, Pascal’s particular brand of bravura masculinity returned in 2015 with Narcos, Netflix’s true events epic about Pablo Escobar and the rise of the Colombian drug trade. It is a show The Economist describes as “doing a better job than most narco-dramas in getting across the brutal seediness of the drugs business.” Pascal plays Javier Peña, a man who isn’t afraid to break a few eggs to make his omelette, a man very much part of the aforementioned brutal seediness.

In an era in which scrutiny of our institutions is critical, a show set in a time when there was plenty brushed under the carpet conducts an interesting moral waltz with the audience’s empathy. Pedro says: “I don’t see him as moral. I see him as pragmatic and work obsessed. It is all due credit to the creators of the show, who allow me to interpret the character in the most interesting way possible. I love that Peña and the writers of Narcos and Netflix are totally game for him being a character who exists more ambiguously and represents the greyer elements of this drugs war that the U.S. gets involved with. I think he, as a character, is definitely wanting to get the job done however he sees fit, and this is a guy who never got married, who never had attachments, who could easily disappear into this world with nothing to lose, and I think that’s what makes him good at it and helps him achieve some of his objectives - because he can assimilate, he can participate, he can get on the inside culturally and psychologically, and be totally badass, of course.”

He has plenty more to do in the second series, so the challenge for Pascal is to elevate the performance and not leave it still and stagnant, a challenge he revels in. He says: “I feel like, in a way, the first season is, in terms of the character, somewhat of an introduction and opens up the opportunity to see more in the second season. When you meet him he’s already on the inside, he’s having sex with a gorgeous prostitute who he has this strange relationship to: they are lovers, she’s his informant, they are friends, and we don’t get that many private adventures of Peña in the first season. I would say in the second series there is more opportunity to spend a little more time with that character, so it almost feels like season one and season two is a two-act play, and in the second act Peña has more to do.”

Now, as expected, momentum is very much in Pedro’s favour. Next year will be a big year for him. We have seen a trailer for his first feature film, The Great Wall, the first attempt by anyone at joining the forces of eastern and western cinema. He teams up with Matt Damon in this cross-cultural epic directed by Zhang Yimou. He says of the film that, “We shot it in China for five months. When I was just graduating from college, Matt Damon turned into a comet as an actor, and rightly so, so he has been very famous for most of my adult life. It was a big deal to go work alongside someone as famous and talented as he is. From my perspective he has always been much more an actor than a celebrity.”

When he began talking about Zhang Yimou, his unashamed inner nerd came to the fore: “When I expanded my curiosities as I got older, I was reading plays but I was also getting into independent and foreign cinema. I saw Raise the Red Lantern in 1991, and saw The Story of Qiu Ju by myself because I was that much of a fucking dork - I walked by myself to see the Chinese movie that was playing - and I saw Shanghai Triad four times at the Angelika [in New York] while I was at college. I saw it early and said to friends, ‘Have you seen this?’ I took two friends and I took my mom when she visited New York to go see Zhang Yimou’s films. I had a period in the nineties when I was really quite obsessed with his movies. He showed what he could do with Hero and House of Flying Daggers, which were very different from his arthouse films he made in the nineties, which are all brilliant, and now this is taking it a step further because it is a big Hollywood ‘creature-feature’ that meets epic Chinese cinema. So for me it was very surreal, because I had admired him as a filmmaker and one I never expected to meet or work with - and then in my first film. I was working with him alongside Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe and Andy Lau and an amazing Chinese crew and brilliant Chinese actors. I had no idea how it would turn out but it was a very surreal experience.”

Damon was able to talk to The Rake about having Pedro as a teammate on the movie. It may be obvious as to why Damon, one of the most respected and loved men in Hollywood, would have been picked for the part, but why the relative newcomer Pascal? Damon without hesitation answers: “He was picked because he was the best actor available for the part; he is a fantastic actor.” He cited Pedro’s time acting in the theatre in New York as the way in which he developed his craft. He says: “He came out of [Tisch] 20 years ago and just started doing theatre. If you can last into your forties doing that - he had his 10,000 hours a decade and a half ago. He’s really mastered his craft and you can see that with the level of technique and how agile he is as an actor, he can really do anything. I’d say he can dial up or dial down whatever the director needs. When you are that versatile, it is a real boon to a director because they can temper the piece exactly how they like. It’s really fun to play off him because he does different things, he has a lot of fun and there is a lot of joy in his work, and we laughed a lot. I have always said about great actors that they are good enough for both of you - they’re so overwhelming that they pull you right into the scene. Personally I end up not having to work because I am being taken, like you board a train and you go along for the ride. That’s what it is like working with Pedro, he is a really uniquely talented guy, but that comes from years of theatre in New York. It is not just the raw talent, he has honed his technique over the last couple of years.”

Pedro feels his rise to fame in his early forties comes as a double-edged sword. On the one hand fame at a young age “fucks you up. I don’t think that as a rule, but it can fuck you up.” On the other hand, “in my experience I feel quite naïve. I was doing plays and guest spots and some bullshit indie films that no one will ever see. It is interesting to be completely grown up and feel like a freshman.”

Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which is due out next year, was the same for him. He says: “I was just in some kind of strange candy shop doing Kingsman 2, finding myself in a scene with Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth and Halle Berry and Channing Tatum and getting to meet Julianne Moore. It was really kind of a movie experience on crack." And reveals that Jack Daniels, is the biggest badass of them all.

This is all to say that Pedro Pascal, the political refugee who employed all of his talent, all of his ambition and passion to create a success of the opportunity given to him in the land of the free, is very much Mr. America. His old friend Sarah Paulson says that, “It is a very sweet thing - watching him land where I always thought he should land. Proud doesn’t begin to cover it; it feels righteous.”

America is built on the type of tolerance, kindness, humility and skill that Pedro Pascal embodies. And his rise to prominence comes at a time when there is a narrative - one that is extremely close to executive power - suggesting walling off Central and South American immigrants, a suggestion Pedro says is “revealing some of the ugliest things of which we are capable as a nation”. Damon agrees with The Rake, saying, “I’ve often thought, especially listening to Donald Trump do his thing, that Pedro’s is the quintessential American story, and that’s why we don’t build walls.”

Perhaps it is the responsibility of magazines like ours to make clear that no one is more American than Pedro Pascal. And it is only fitting that, as America continues to seek progress - the repealing of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, its first black president, perhaps its first female president, a fairer medical system - Pedro embodies everything beautiful about a beautiful country, and it feels righteous.

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal photoshoot #pedro pascal the rake #pedro pascal interview #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal photos #pedro pascal words #pedro pascal magazine

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harrisonarchive · 8 months

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A telegram from George Harrison to President Nixon, dated August 16, 1973 (courtesy of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services via Kansas City Star).

“A handwritten note on top of the telegram asks, ‘Is this one of the former Beatles?’ Yes, it was. The telegram, a terse protest of the bombing of Cambodia, was addressed to then-President Richard Nixon and sent to the White House by George Harrison on August 16, 1973. […] Harrison’s records are noteworthy because they help complete a story of government paranoia, of Nixon’s exploitation of federal agents to undercut what was then growing youth dissent toward the Vietnam War. Not a small factor was Nixon’s own fear that he wouldn’t be re-elected in 1972. [...] He’d previously been granted entry, despite officials knowing about the 1969 conviction. Here is the text of the telegram, retaining the misspellings [of the transcriber] and garbled syntax: ‘Sir how can you bomb Cambonian [sic] citizens and worry about kicking me out of the country for smoking marijuana at the time. Your repressive emperaour [sic] war monger ways stop before too piece luv we will run the world Harry Krisher Hare Hara Krishne Hare Hara Hare Hara Krishner [sic]. George Harrison.’” - The Kansas City Star, August 11, 2017 (x)

#George Harrison #quote #quotes about George #quotes by george #Harrison correspondence #1973 #1970s #beware of greedy leaders #Concert for Bangladesh #fits queue like a glove

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didalexiabreakupwitholgayet · 19 days

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hi :) thanks for all your answers!

lingering question from a while back, but do you consider the players who made themselves available for selection after being part of las 15 to be scabs? the article that lucia garcia wrote sort of made it sound like that, and it's hard to read the situation differently.

it makes me respect Mapi and Patri so much, to stick to their guns even when everyone else went back.

I get all their careers have a lot on the line, but like.. collective bargaining only works if it's collective, right? Is there nuance i'm not seeing?

sigh...i have gone back and forth so many times throughout this entire saga. and in some ways, i'm still working out how to make sense and reconcile it all. it's complicated, and i think you have to factor in the prior history.

first, spain has the unique situation of having its draconian sports law in effect. according to this law, players who refuse a call-up risk sanctions and losing their license to play football.

second, there have been prior protests before that were unsuccessful and only helped to damage individual players. vero boquete essentially threw away her nt career because she decided to speak up after the 2015 world cup. that has to have been percolating in the back of some players' minds.

third, you are right. you can't have a successful revolution with partial participation. people kept comparing the uswnt lawsuit with las 15 and they are both completely different situations. however, what uswnt had going for them was unity. all the uswnt players signed on. that never happened with las 15 (there were only 15 of them!). and there was even pressure from liga f clubs to back out of any protest that prevented other spanish players from signing on. so it wasn't so easy to have every player in the spanish nt system just sign on. if there are so many divisions from the start, then there's no way that movement can be successful. (especially when you had players who went out of their to way to kiss vilda's/rfef ass, but that's a separate conversation!)

plus, there was so much media backlash and skewering of the players that made the divisions worse. rfef was talking to players individually and breaking down the lines of protest even further. it was a huge mess. and ultimately, some players felt that they could have better progress by working within the system. as alexia said in the oliva conclave, if they left, then they knew rfef would just call in the youth players who would have no voice or say in the matter. so no, i don't think they are scabs because there was no proper picket line in the first place. it was a fractured mess from day one.

and of course, i have the utmost respect for mapi, patri, and others who basically sacrificed a world cup to stand up for their ideals. that takes so much guts. but i also understand why others returned to the team to advocate for change from within because they saw how corrupt and messed up rfef was in quashing any dissent.

there is still so much left to go with improving conditions in spain, and some days it feels like spain never won the world cup because we never had the boom that england did after winning the euros. but vilda/rubiales would still be here had it not been for the spain winning the world cup. there never was that amount of world pressure and scrutiny and political will to actually get things improved. so that's something.

#rfef ruins all the good things #futfem #woso

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incorrectmahabharatquotes · 2 months

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this is to the people mindlessly picking fights with y'all without even TRYING to understand another perspective that doesn't match theirs;

don't come on here, go, go and keep supporting such atrocities, go on and keep your eyes blindfolded in the name of religion, don't question anything going around you.

keep shouting mindlessly because unemployment, education, taxes, middle class struggles, inflation, the rising debt of our country, the shutdown on free and independent media channels, manipur burning, ye sab toh matter karti hi nai. isse thodina desh chalta hai, right?

desh toh religion ke upar vivad, riots, violence karne se chalta hai, right? hindu khatre mein hai, right??? apna pura dhyaan isme do taaki baki kuch ki importance toh dikhe hi na. sahi hai, uneducated youth = easier mobilisation.

just remember — historically or in the present times, we've all seen what has happened to a country which hyper-fixated on one particular religion beyond everything. humare neighbour, pakistan ko hi le lo. it's the prime example of what happens when politics becomes religion and NOTHING ELSE.

baaki, remember, an eye for an eye will make us all blind. and then, do try and see if the politicians and their bullshit that you guys fight for come and save us.

What hurts me is that most of these people are young, some are wee little children, they've been force-fed a very specific view of the world for over a decade now and they found that tiny, narrow view of the world so comforting that they live there now. They ignore reality to continue living that lie. The people that have fed them these lies continue to profit off of them.

Just today I saw these people call poor farmers 'terrorists'. How badly warped does your mind have to be to come to the conclusion that the poor people trying to change their living conditions by ASKING the government to change some laws is equal to terrorism? The act of people exercising their rights as citizens is deemed "anti-india".

Critical thinking has left the chat.

They will ignore pressing matters of the present to do historical revisionism. I wonder if they're scared to actually face the rapant problems India is facing. They will use the veneer of caring about their country and then talk about nothing of any consequence.

These people don't even understand that they're not fighting for their beloved religion. They're fighting a war of political party that does not care the slightest bit for them.

One of them was complaining that I was "freeloading" a tag. You know WHAT? If freeloading a tag means that there's a healthy amount of dissent in that tag, then I'll use it. They keep flooding it with xenophobia, casteism and all other sorts of bullshit. If they're allowed to spew that vile poison here, we should be allowed to counter and challenge their harmful words.

- Mod S

#hindublr #fuck it I'm making the decision to use the tag from now on #why not #desi #desiblr #indian politics #asks #mod replies #ask reply #mod: s

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burningvelvet · 2 months

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analysis on the character of billy bones as depicted in treasure island and black sails, particularly his dynamics with flint & silver:

billy bones is such a tragic character and i think he may be overshadowed by the larger personalities of silver and flint, who we see much more of and are led to sympathize more with. but from billy's perspective he really is a tragic character who initially had a strong sense for right and wrong which was later corrupted as he subconsciously/unwillingly "inherited" flint's worse characteristics. in billy's story, flint

billy is a skeptic and a dissenter, just like his political protester parents were according to his black sails backstory. he believes he is opposed to tyranny and injustice. he is therefore opposed to flint, who he has caught lying and acting unjust, and later on he is opposed to silver, who he sees as having echoed those same qualities.

yet, we learn in treasure island (and see somewhat in black sails toward the end) that billy inherits flint's obsessive tunnel vision, and he is driven to a mad sort of existence because of it, which sometimes leads him to align with those tyrannical qualities he detested from his youth. in black sails we learn he was forcefully conscripted to the navy, and was tortured by them after his disappearance in black sails. for a while he's still willing to align with flint because of how much he hates the english.

yet he ultimately ends up aligning himself once again with the english because of his hatred for flint ultimately wins out; he becomes a totally different person after this, toward the end of black sails we see him shooting his former men in revenge. just like flint, billy has become overwhelmed by his desire for revenge, to the point that it drives him to do immoral things he would have previously shunned.

his friendship with silver doesn't work out because silver is more aligned with his own interests and therefore with flint's interests, knowing that flint is the stronger personality over billy. i think billy and silver possibly could have taken flint down together if they were both truly in it, but silver didn't want to risk that chance because he knew the power of having flint's name. in the beginning of treasure island we see that 20ish year after flint's "retirement" his name is still feared even in england. bones was well-respected as a youth, even by vane in black sails, and had a good trajectory - but ultimately his sense of justice, an initially good characteristic, quickly became his downfall on the walrus as he became obsessed with the injustices of flint, to the point where his own potential for greatness was shattered in trying to overcorrect "the sins of the father." that concept, "the sins of the father," really applies to flint/billy overall.

in contrast, i see silver as flint's "true heir" or "chosen heir," and the better half of his son-duo in this interpretation. where billy inherited the revenge theme, silver has inherited more of the cunning. although as we see from his account books in treasure island, and from his command in black sails, billy is also known for being extremely intelligent, he is not as intelligent in the ways of manipulation/cunning as silver is, precisely because of his sense for justice which later becomes his achilles heel as it morphs into a sense of revenge. billy's attempt at righting flint's wrongs, & ultimately overcorrecting, is also a common type of error for children of neglectful parents irl.

(Below is taken from an earlier draft of this post & is possibly repetitive but not enough to not include it)

the decisions of the black sails creators to adapt billy for us billy as an adorable aspiring youth and show us their interpretation of how he was slowly driven mad from flint because of the trauma induced from the moral dilemma that flint put on his shoulders (the murder of singleton & the blank page, gates, etc. from the beginning), the injustice and guilt of which slowly sucked all the innocence out of him and turned him into (as we're told from others) a bitter captain who has essentially inherited a lot of flint's worse traits, like being hard on his men, being obsessive to the point of delusion about injustice and about the gold, and being a drunk like we're told flint ends up as in treasure island.

billy inherits so much from flint and it's tragic. i love flint in black sails, but in billy's story in the series, flint is his villain. to him, flint is an imposing, king lear esque fucked up father figure (as he told billy "i am your king" after billy said they had no kings).

also marvelling at the black sails creators decisions to make both flint/billy tied to the navy, and to make billy's parents progressives who protested forced conscription - the fact that billy was forcefully conscripted considering his background is just so similar to the injustices faced by flint(mcgraw) and the hamiltons imo.

i think billy coming back into the story after being kidnapped by the royal navy was sort of a wasted opportunity to explore his character & how he became further embittered/mad/disenchanted with life. i also think flint was sort of haunted by billy a little in black sails the way billy is haunted by flint in treasure island.

i also find it so interesting that billy and the other pirates visited flint before he died - i quote-searched the book to re-read passages mentioning flint but whenever the other pirates talk about his death, even when silver is present, i don't think it's ever made explicitly clear if silver was there at flint's death or not, but i think we can possibly assume so from the way he's otherwise certain that flint is dead, and talks about his blue face, referencing how the other pirates who were there said flint's face turned blue before/after he died. but what's really interesting is that above anyone else it was billy that acquired the map and not silver...

so in a way billy is his actual heir in the end and not silver... maybe because billy never went looking for it unlike silver, who he feared til he died? did flint tell billy not to let silver have it, and if so, why? in the end of treasure island silver takes only part of it and disappears, as jim says, presumably to live a quiet life with his wife and parrot, a life all the pirates wanted, whereas billy died alone and more miserable than flint (aside from jim, the closest thing he had to a friend).

i just love thinking of billy and flint's dynamic through billy's eyes. him becoming totally obsessed with this tyrannical captain and then sort of inadvertently becoming like him. god.

but at the same time i marvel at how billy still retains a lot of his fire to the end, like his singing (which we dont see in black sails lol) and his insistence on doing whatever he wants (like drinking himself to death, or in black sails, not giving in to silver's plans/refusing to ever trust flint or align with him). and all this sort of applies to silver and flint too but silver inherited more of flint's entertaining, less tragic aspects like his leadership skills, manipulative skills, charm, etc.

flint brings out different qualities in people. does he make silver stronger and billy weaker - or were they both going those routes anyway? does flint actually lead to various characters to doom or would they have gone that route without him? how much of billy's story is he responsible for and how much is flint responsible for? these are really philosophical questions about free will and what we can and cannot control. billy's story is all about moral dilemma and how sometimes in life there will be difficult questions that have no easy answers, or that we are never capable of answering.

#queue #black sails #treasure island #robert louis stevenson #billy bones #captain flint #james mcgraw #captain james flint #analysis #literature #english literature #books #book analysis #book thoughts #media analysis #character analysis #my writing #my analysis #long john silver

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youthdissent · 9 months

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[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded rectangle taking up the top two thirds, with large, black, bold, all-caps text that reads "California! join queer and trans youth in protesting the Supreme Court". In the bottom right corner there is smaller bold black text that reads "Join us in San Diego, CA." Non-bold black text below this reads "at the San Diego Waterfront Park/City Hall on August 9th from 12:00-2:00PM PST!". In the bottom left corner is a drawing of a person with light tan skin and mid-length green curly hair using a wheelchair and holding a progress flag. End ID.]

[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "We, The Youth, Dissent". Below this is smaller black text which reads "The Supreme Court has recently targeted areas of our everyday lives that impact our finances, education, and our freedom of self-expression. With the rulings impacting student debt relief, lgbtqia+ rights, and affirmative action, we have had enough. Queer Youth Assemble has created Youth Dissent as a way to highlight the impact of these recent Supreme Court rulings especially on minority groups within the lgbtqia+ community. The intersectionality of these rulings is too large to ignore and we the youth, dissent." End ID.]

[ID: A yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "What should I bring?". Below this is smaller black text which reads "Here's a quick list of things you might want to bring with you to your upcoming demonstration. Keep an eye out for our resource guides on organizing and protesting coming out this week!" Below this there is a list of checkboxes in slightly smaller text whose items include, "Necessary medications, Water & Small snacks, State ID, cash & coins, Fully charged cell phone, Hand sanitizer & a mask, Hat & sunscreen, Our printable "Know Your Rights" & "In Case of Emergency" cards*, A sign". Below this is smaller text which reads "*These are available on our site alongside printable pages to cut and distribute at your demonstration!" End ID.]

[ID: A dark yellow square post with a light yellow rounded square in the middle that takes up most of the post. Inside there is a heading in all-caps, bold, black text that reads "Find a protest near you". Below this is smaller black text that reads "Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions! Organizing and Protesting resource guides available in our bio now! Check out our page and website to stay up to date on our latest demonstration announcements.". Below this is smaller, centered text that reads "Currently featuring.... Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, and much more!" End ID.]

#original post #affirmative action #scotus #queer youth assemble #qya #us politics #queer rights #trans rights #we the youth dissent #youth dissent #ca events #san diego events

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queeryouthassemble · 9 months

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[ID: A banner-sized collage of photos and graphics with torn edges, attached with tape. One photo is of a queer youth in a jean vest speaking into a megaphone in front of the Supreme Court building. Another features a queer youth wearing glasses and holding a sign reading "Legislate guns not people" in rainbow bubble letters. Another image is a sign that reads "Thank you QYA you are loved and supported" in all-caps red and black painted letters. Another is a poster advertising the "We the Youth Dissent" Washington, D.C. protest. An additional image is of the Supreme Court building with the words "We're here we're queer" stamped over, along with stamps of famous queer activists. Another features a queer youth with orange hair and glasses holding a sign which reads, "Diversity is a necessity" in blue all-capital letters. Another image is of a Black woman standing at a microphone. Toward the right are three images: a sign in all-caps rainbow bubble letters that reads "respect our existence, expect our resistance" with a peace sign, a queer youth holding a progress flag printed with the word equality, and white painted letters reading "Let us live." Below are red letters that read, "Impeach Thomas + Alito" in all-caps. There is an image of a queer youth with pale skin and dark hair in a jean jacket speaking into a red bullhorn, which has stickers that read "Fuck the Proud Boys" and "DC Rats." In the bottom right is the QYA logo. End ID.]

#original post #queer youth assemble #qya #intern is normal on hellsite #queer youth #queer rights #trans rights #trans #scotus #us supreme court #us politics #youth voice #youth movement #youth dissent #we the youth dissent

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catdotjpeg · 3 months

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FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE! Human rights organizations from different sectors marched to US Embassy in line with the 125th anniversary of the Philippine-American War. The peaceful protest was barred by state forces from the PNP in Kalaw Ave., proving further that the Marcos-Duterte regime has no tolerance for dissent, violating our demoratic rights to assemble. As we assert our calls for today, Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino (KATRIBU) vehemently condemns the US for its warmongering practices that continuously back Israel in committing grave offenses and human rights violations against the Palestinians, amounting the death toll to 27,000 in the past 121 days. The US-backed aggression in Palestine is no different from the mercenary traditions in the Philippines that still persist until today through various forms—the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Act (EDCA), the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), and more. With this, we reiterate our call—from Palestine to the Philippines, stop the US war machine!

-- Katribu Youth, 4 Feb 2024

#palestine #philippines #metro manila #manila #indigenous rights

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jiangwanyinscatmom · 1 year

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Of course thanks for asking!

@ninetiesloki

Personally, I don't think this was intentionally meant to be abusive by Jiang Cheng, arguably it can be in the eyes of adults. But, he was a child at the time, and we are privy to how he became what he was with the abuse, mental and physical, from Madam Yu. I stipulate again, at such a young age, he did not mean to be intentionally abusive, cruel, yes, but not outright abusive. Kids also have merit of being young and having that benefit of doubt to grow for the better and nurturing with their relationships. A cruel action does not beget an abuser unless that is the side catered to by the self, or unintentionally enabled by loved ones even.

This feeds into what Jiang Fengmian had told him, to not say words or do things he does not mean. Angry words and constant violent actions lead for toxic adult relationships.

He was not ever really served a consequence or lesson for casual cruelty. When he threatened Wei Wuxian, the deal was made "to never tell" as he decided to protect Wei Wuxian from dogs. But with that, he still cruelly let dogs harass him until he was done laughing during their youth. Which then later as adults Jiang Cheng used that trauma to torture Wei Wuxian with Fairy out of intentional cruelty with the information he was privy to. He was intentionally cruel in words in his youth, but that intention eventually did morph into physical and mental abuse.

We also get told,when he realized Wei Wuxian left at the time, he went to Jiang Yanli first, because he wouldn't be in trouble, one, with Jiang Fengmian who brought the boy in who now has run off, and Madam Yu, who finds fault in any situation and who earlier, laughed at the dissent Wei Wuxian being brought in elicited from a young (already very neglected and isolated from his parents) Jiang Cheng. And in that way, all three of them were gone from the estate at night, and could lead to further trouble, that he made.

Intention and action, is the interesting part of Jiang Cheng. Because he feels very strongly but due to that, he is prone to the angriest and most harmful reasoning without thought. And with no self reflection and his own heavy abandonment issues, the one he will blame is always the one he sees as having broken their side of a relationship promise, despite the cruelty he had expressed in turn and often.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #canon jiang cheng #no I didn't add in an @ later shhhh #I forgot okay

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layzeal · 2 years

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i said 5 months ago i was gonna share my thoughts on this scene and never did, so it's time to dig this out

what did wei wuxian mean by asking shijie "why would someone like another person" and why i.... don't think he's talking about lan wangji (i know-- i know. just bear with me)

or more accurately: an analysis of chapter 71, wwx's thoughts on love, and how mxtx utilizes parallels between past and present!

(Ch 71 of MDZS web revised edition //// ExR translation)

okay let's get straight to the point that's gonna make y'all want to call me a stupid bitch who can't read: i legitimately do not think wwx was talking about lwj in this scene! here's why:

first and foremost, let's remember what the status of wangxian's relationship was at this point after sunshot ended

first, phoenix mountain: a callback to their teen dynamic. wwx's silly and flirty personality is back, he teases lwj by throwing a peony at him then asking to borrow his ribbon. lwj is frustrated, etc. lwj forcefully kisses wwx then gets angry at himself. wwx finds him and gets worried that something happened to him. they walk together and talk in very friendly manner until the xuanli incident happens. by the end they part on good terms

then, yunmeng teahouse: the first scene of this chapter. wwx is feeling quite upbeat about seeing lwj as they had a nice chat last time they met. he does a lil phoenix mountan callback by throwing a peony at him, then asking him to come upstairs and hang out. lwj does but it.... doesnt end well. he's worried about wwx's worsening temper and fears he's starting to show signs of loss of control, and asks him once again to go to gusu with him. that severely sours wwx's mood, to the point of snapping at lwj when lwj implies that he'll regret it in the future. lwj realizes his mistake and they become polite again, but the atmosphere is significantly strained, and wwx even comments that he was presumptious and shouldn't have invited him over, which lwj dissents. wwx parts with a cordial but distant "thank you", and on... not great terms

what i think really makes the above hurt though is that, when wwx comes back to yunmeng and jc asks who he met. wwx answers this:

worse than jin zixuan.....oof. im so sorry hgj

so, it really is quite tragic. wwx had a nice time with lwj in phoenix mountain, and because of that he wanted to try and wash away their bad blood, ask him to hang out, recall some stories of their youth, maybe mend this relationship that became so strained during the war! what happens instead is that... he gets the harsh reminder of what (in his mind) lwj thinks of his cultivation, thinks he's not in control of it, that it's dangerous and he should be locked up. with that, they're all back to square one :(

the thing is, MDZS is quite known for being non-linear and having a humongous amount of flashbacks, and they're all set and positioned at the time they were for a reason! the thing is, as most read the novel once and then proceed to only revisit scenes separately, naturally forgetting about the grand-picture and the scenes that come before and after, we might misremember how some events play out or the state of the character arcs and relationships, and i believe the popular fanon interpretation that "omggg wwx was asking yanli this bc he likes lwj but can't admit this yet!!!! 🙈" is quite of a great example of this

but!! it's not for any bad reason, after all both the Audio Drama and CQL kinda play up this moment with some beautiful background music. this is, in the end, a romance novel! but let's put a pin on that for a bit and analyze what led to this scene, and why WWX came looking for shijie to ask her this

so as you see, the scene right before was wei wuxian and jiang cheng talking about jin zixuan, with jc asking wwx to not pick fights with him anymore since he's the heir of lanling jin. wwx is baffled because up until that point he and jc were trashtalking buddies when it came to jzx, but there's nothing they can do about it if shijie still likes him

that... makes wwx quite speechless, and he goes searching for her to get an answer. in his mind, jzx is still an awful, undeserving person! so why would shijie like him so much?

why would someone like another person?

of course, he's not as shameless to ask shijie right to her face why she likes someone like jzx, esp since she's already well familiar with his poor opinion of him, so he tries getting an "unbiased" answer by making a vague question, which in turn makes shijie think wwx is in love with someone else

now here's the thing: i feel like fandom tends to flanderize wwx when it comes to his unreliable narration, awareness of his own feelings or lan wangji's. we don't have time to get into that now, but if you've followed me for a while you know my thoughts on this

but here, specifically, i do not think wwx is in "denial about his crush" or "waving off because he doesnt want to get caught". his answer feels genuine, and honestly? really sad once you think about it

"I won't like anyone, at least not too much. Wouldn't it be like putting a rein on my own neck?"

this isn't strange once you consider the types of romantic relationships he grew up observing. other than his own parents', which he's mostly forgotten about, a strong love and attatchment sounds more like tying a rope around your neck. even though wwx is a romantic at heart who flirts easily but had been saving his first kiss for 20 years, he's still never felt this type of love for anyone before, and can't imagine putting himself through it

"So, wait... just because WWX said so you think you should believe it? You're telling me the curtains are just blue? If he's not talking about Lan Wangji, then what's the point of this scene?"

glad you asked!

you see, something that MXTX does quite often with the flashback placement in MDZS is contrast the moments where wangxian's relationship was at its best with moments where it was at its worst. As wwx recall these memories, his pre-conceived notions about lwj get challenged and his actions and words get recontextualized! my favorite example is probably the ending of the flashback of wwx's return, to him waking up in the cloud recesses

no i'll never shut up about this flashback placement. my goddd

so, when looking at the "why would someone like another person" scene, i ask you to not look at it by itself, but as a part of the literary work that mdzs is! because, as the wangxian of the past are stuck in this cordial, but strained relationship, do you remember where the wangxian of the present have currently been left at?

if you ask me, there is something incredibly sweet about leaving these characters at their most tender --- when one is finally beginning to not only understand his own feelings, but to suspect that those feelings are requited, in which he's allowing himself to imagine a calm and happy future with him right as they march inside the lion's den --- and meeting them again when they're younger, and strained, and not fully knowing how to communicate that they care for each other, which in turn only hurts them both.

there is something very sweet about seeing wwx who is slowly realizing that he's in love, testing the waters of that, seeing how much he can take, in what ways he can ask for affection, and then seeing him again as he says "i won't ever like someone, at least not so much. wouldnt it be suffocating? wouldn't it be an impediment? wouldnt it be shackling yourself?" because you, like a cheeky grandma, can look at him and think: you don't know yet, but i've seen you then. you will like someone very much, and it won't be restraining. in fact, you'll never feel more free...

and that is the biggest thing, about revisiting this scene after you're done. because you'll look back this 20-something WWX who genuinely believed loving someone to much is like putting a rein around his own neck... and knowing he'll know a love that not only will not feel like a restrain*, but will be there to catch him whenever something does

*okay, except in bed, but that's only a bonus for wwx

#i kinda miss literary analysis class. this is a love letter to my literature teachers #mdzs is a beautiful literary work and deserves to be treated as such!#anyways uhhh. wangxian is poggers #i feel like sometimes in people's attempts to make wx more tropey and traditionally romantic #it makes them lose what actually makes their romance so special #and the brilliance of the flashback placements in mdzs #i already wrote a lot today so no tag essay lmao. enjoy!#modao #lace speaks #do i put this in the tag? ehhhh #demi wwx

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