#yeah i was in prison for refusing to join the idf

[menlove]

it's also like. a lot of these people have made being The Most Progressive Moral Leftist a goal and marker of true social clout. and they have thus made leftism a personality trait rather than a political stance. so you see takes on here (usually from teenagers lmfao) equating leftism with having sex, having friends, going to clubs, not liking "cringey" things, dressing cool, etc while conservatives/liberals are everything But that (i.e liberals are all asexual steven universe fandom moms and conservatives are all straight white men who go to church on sunday)

when the reality is like..... literally anyone can be anything. there are people who you would think are cool and awesome (i.e they're queer, they go to clubs, they have sex, they dress in modern fashion, they have an alternative appearance) and then they open their mouths and it turns out they voted for trump or think the holocaust was fake. there's tay//lor swift fans who went to jail for dodging the draft in israel. and people with fandom blogs who spend every weekend volunteering at their local homeless shelter and rioted during the george floyd protests/riots. or any combination of literally any trait w any political ideology

like you genuinely cannot tell someone's morals or political stances based on their appearance or social activities and it's really weird to conflate the two. it's not a popularity contest ykwim?

[paddingtonfan69]

This is very random but I was just reminded of the existence of the most iconic Taylor Swift stan (to me, at least), @LegitTayUpdates, who went to prison for refusing to join the IDF and then I was wondering about a scenario where Sterling and April heard about that girl and what their thoughts would be on that viral story.

Oh man that story was a GOOD one what a legend, lest we forget -

I famously hate twitter but this is a situation of twitter being good!! Also I just read this interview with her to do my research okay icon

now, as to what our girls would think, let’s throw ourselves back to April 2019 (god, if only) and have a little scenario —

It’s a warm day in April (the month, not the person) and Sterling is stuck on a bench waiting for her mom to pick her up from this debate meet, alone expect for April (the person, not the month), who keeps shooting glares at Sterling.

“Sorry again,” Sterling says weakly.

“Please don’t talk to me,” April responds.

Which is kind of fair. Sterling did not do well in there, and April had somehow decided that, since they are the only freshmen on the team, it somehow reflects poorly on April too. Which is so unfair. Whatever. She doesn’t need to talk to April.

So she scrolls on her phone mindlessly, praying for her mom to hurry the heck up and get her. But then something catches her eye on twitter and she let’s out a quiet “oh my gosh,” before clicking on said tweet, another one, then an article about this person, more and more wild information coming.

“This is crazy,” she mutters.

“Oh my god, what?” April asks.

“I thought you didn’t want me to talk to you.”

April narrows her eyes.

“I’m bored. Just tell me what is making you all... gasp-y.”

Sterling internally debates for a minute before figuring the story is a little to juicy not to share. Even if she’s sharing with April.

“Okay,” she says, scooting closer to April on the bench to show her her phone. “So this, like, Taylor Swift stan apparently went to prison because she didn’t join the IDF.”

April blinks. “What.”

“It’s the Israeli army, I had to google it. It’s, like mandatory, apparently. Which is pretty messed up.”

April rolls her eyes.

“I know what the IDF is, I’m not a child.”

“Ouch.”

“But how does that come back to Taylor Swift?”

“Well, this girl apparently was like, ‘sorry I wasn’t posting about Taylor, I was in prison.’ It’s just funny.”

“Civil disobedience isn’t funny, Sterling.”

“I mean, it kind of is. Like, if you think about it, this girl is doing this crazy brave act of rebellion against a rule of her country she doesn’t believe in. It’s something that should be serious, heroic, or at least make her a controversial figure, but what she feels is the most important thing to say is that she’ll be back to posting about Taylor soon.”

April just stares at her for a second. Sterling feels it hot on her face, as she braces herself for April’s judgement. But April smiles of all things.

“Where was this energy during the debate?”

It’s not exactly a compliment, but it’s the closest April has come to being nice to her in the last four years, so Sterling will freaking take it. She grins.

“Maybe if the debate had been about Taylor Swift, I could have pulled out a win.”

April laughs, not the derisive one Sterling is used to, but a real one. Sterling kind of forgot that April has a really nice laugh.

“Come on,” Sterling says, “read this article, it’s wild.”

So they read, pressed close to each other on the bench. It’s nice. Like, weirdly nice.

“Look at this,” Sterling says, “someone else tweeted that while she was locked up, she had a prison girlfriend.”

April stiffens at that.

“Is that something you... endorse?”

Sterling blinks, kind of unsure of the question. She’s watched a few seasons of Orange is the New Black, so she’s definitely not fully ignorant to concept of a prison girlfriend, but she had kind of made the comment as more of another factor to prove that this girl on twitter is kind of a badass.

But April is looking at her intently, like there’s a wrong answer. April probably thinks the concept of a prison girlfriend is debased or whatever, but Sterling isn’t going to lie for her benefit.

“I mean, yes?” She finally says. “Like, it depends on what crime they committed. But in this case, I don’t know, it’s kind of romantic.”

“Romantic?” April says, disbelievingly.

“Yeah! Taylor Swift girl, like, flew against what was expected of her and that must have been scary and hard, so for her to find love in prison after that, it’s nice is all.”

Sterling’s expecting April to fight back against that. She’s pretty sure that lesbians in jail who don’t support their country is a trifecta of things April is not a fan of, but April just looks down at her hands.

“You think it’s romantic even though they’re both girls?” she finally asks.

“Yeah,” Sterling says. Honestly she’s barely even thought of that, “I mean... why should that matter, when two people really love each other, right?”

April swallows. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Sterling tenses. She really really hopes that April is going to say something terrible about gay people. Like, she knows April kind of sucks, but even that seems a bit too far for her.

Just as April is about to says something, a car pulls up in the parking lot, that Sterling recognizes as April’s Dad’s. April immediately stands up, straightens her uniform, a veneer falling over her face.

“Try to actually try to be an asset next debate,” she says coldly to Sterling, like the last ten minutes didn’t happen. “And maybe consider better people to look up to than... Taylor Swift fans with prison girlfriends.”

Sterling grins.

“No promises.”

April looks like she’s fighting back her own grin, but then she’s back to her normal glare-y self. Then she’s off to join her father, and Sterling is left sitting by herself, trying to unravel what just happened.

Over a year later, she finally gets it.

[frogadir]

Just remembered the taylor swift updates twitter account who was like Yeah i’ll be gone for a little while i’m going to prison and someone was like what did you do and she said I refused to join the idf. Also at some point i remember she tweeted some of the transcript of her parents divorce hearing and to decide who she wanted to live with she asked them both their favorite taylor swift song. the mom said superman and the dad said story of us so she chose her dad. I actually think about this all the time

[youareinlovees]

i once saw a picture of taylor’s twitter likes from 2014 and she had liked a tweet confirming wonderland is a swiftgron song ahdhsjsj that was photoshop right? if it was true it would be talked about every single day until today lol

The screenshot was from the rep era and yeah that was edited 😭 the op ran a parody update account and was a massive kay and on her personal she was like... a pathological liar who faked court documents and went viral for refusing to join the IDF and then going to prison (but apparently she lied about that too) and then she turned into a BTS stan and got suspended a year later