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The Quiet Blogger

@liastevan

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inkskinned

i don’t wanna love myself like “buy this feel good”. i wanna love myself like i made a sandwich for later because i knew i’d be too busy. i wanna love myself like hang on take a breath do you actually like this. i wanna love myself like okay we’re gonna set a reminder to get up and brush our teeth. i wanna love myself like - it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to take that nap, it’s okay to go home.

i don’t wanna feel sexy like tv. i don’t wanna feel sexy like little black dress. i wanna feel sexy like high note during karaoke. like just got done writing 14 pages of poetry. like let me show you this scarf i’ve been knitting. i wanna feel sexy like hand on the back of the headrest while you parallel park. like did i tell you about that time i saved a baby bird. like don’t tell her but i’ve been sneaking money into her purse.

i don’t wanna feel pretty like expensive. like high fashion. like paid to be here. i wanna feel pretty like a bird in a puddle. i wanna feel pretty like streak of dyed hair. i wanna feel pretty like calligraphy, like new leaves, like a skinned knee bleed, like a dog running at full speed. i wanna feel pretty like lying next to you. i wanna feel pretty like the new album just dropped, i wanna feel pretty like a shower, i wanna feel pretty like a stone wall all covered in moss.

i keep saying body neutrality. that feels negative - no bad things, no good things, just body. but i mean - my body is neutral like a flower is neutral like an oil slick is neutral like a day is neutral, too. my body is neutral so a kiss can feel like lightning so a dance can feel like a hula hoop so a walk to get coffee can feel like - god, i’m so happy to just be around you.

my body is a site. not the source of the joy, just where i can find it. i don’t wanna love like - finally got my body tight/forced myself through a diet/whatever trend is the current hype. i wanna love myself like - i go to this river and i find gold every time i shift around inside it. i wanna love myself like - i feel sexy because it’s sexy to be alive, and laughing. i wanna love myself like - bitch, i could have died, and i didn’t, and if that isn’t the prettiest almost in the whole world, than i don’t know what is.

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penpanoply

wow i wanna love myself like extremely pleasing typefacing i wanna love myself like enjoyed this post i made a little art about it i wanna love myself like the little flags on the letter t love to curl themselves against their base i want to love myself like hold on mom, it’s a good reason i’m crying

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Anonymous asked:

Hi! Do you have/know any resources for aroace info I’m trying to figure out my identity and I don’t know where to look to find info that actually helps me figure out a label that fits with me

Of course! I have loads of links here for you to just rummage through; some have basic aro and/or ace info, and others go deeper into labels. I hope some of these help you! Stay safe 💕

1. The Internet Is Your Friend

The internet has tons of aromantic and asexual resources, it just takes a little time to look sometimes! Here I have found for you some aspec videos, youtubers, websites, and the like!

Aspec Videos and Youtubers:

Celeste M is one of my favourite YouTubers! As well as talking about gender and sexuality, they also make videos about physical/mental health, wellbeing, and lighter topics like cooking, cosplay and tutorials. I totally recommend them!

Aaron Ansuini focuses more on transgender related subjects in his videos, but he also has some good ones on asexuality! His YouTube also covers Disability, mental health, art and animation! He’s pretty awesome!

Yasmin Benoit is what a lot of people consider the “Unlikely Face of Asexuality.” An aromantic asexual activist and alternative model, she promotes visibility for the aspec community and LGBT+ people of colour. A love her so much and recommend checking some of her videos out!

Sexplanations on YouTube provides an A+ video on asexuality and asexual experiences. Personally, I found this video very insightful and engaging, and definitely worth checking out. They also do a video on demisexuality!!

Jamie is a trans, autistic, LGBT+ YouTuber I really enjoy! As well as talking about queer topics, he has fashion videos, lifestyle videos, pretty funny reaction videos, and some other things. This video taught me more about asexuality, as well as providing some well needed ace memes and serotonin!

Believe it or not, there are many great TED Talks on asexuality! Having such a variety of videos opens you to different perspectives and viewpoints on asexuality. This includes Yasmin Benoit!

Other awesome aspec YouTubers and videos!

Aspec Websites and Pages:

This isn’t a website, but it’s too good not to include! I found this comic by page artist Kotaline Jones quite a while ago, and I still go back to it! It’s probably my favourite aspec comic. Each page is drawn beautifully well, and brought me much comfort and understanding. Kotaline is very talented, and I owe a lot to this.

Links to aspec pages!

2. Connect With Others!

One of the best ways to learn is to connect with others! There’s many ways to do so, and you can make friendships out of it too *looks at the other mods 👀*

Social Media

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms are great ways to connect with members of the LGBT+ community! Especially here on Tumblr, which is apparently 193% more queer than any other platform, haha! There are many Ask Blogs (like us lol) dedicated to help and educate people on aromanticism and/or asexuality, but a lot of the time can just explore! There are loads of aspec bloggers and group chats that will happily befriend you!

TrevorSpace

Monitored and youth-friendly, TrevorSpace is a social networking site dedicated to LGBT+ people and allies aged 13-24. There you can create profiles and engage with different people and communities. There you can talk about more serious discussion; such as topics concerning mental health, coming out, and discrimination, and well as light-hearted topics about passions and interests. It is a great place to meet new people, and privacy/safety is taken very seriously. You can also find resources and get involved with local queer communities through TrevorSpace!

Local Communities!

If you’re able to, look into LGBT+ Spaces near you! Pride Gatherings are a fantastic way to find and engage with fellow queers! It can be quite an amazing experience to meet other LGBT+ people, and it’s a great opportunity to make new relationships as well. Just remember to stay safe

3. Try Some On!

Labels are awesome in the fact that you don’t have to think they’re awesome! You can like em! You can despise them! You can have a love-hate relationship with them! The complexity of gender and sexuality is not as black and white as some people think, and it is 100% normal to be confused. When it comes to labels, it’s all down to what you feel most comfortable with. Labels are like boxes. And you are a cat. You can force a cat to go in a particular box, but they won’t like it. It will take time for the cat to choose which box, or boxes, it wants to sit in. They can change their mind later, and that’s okay. The cat may even scratch up the box they really like, but they will eventually settle in. Labels are ment to make someone feel more valid and comfortable. If its not, then you can change it.

I hope this helps, if anyone has other resources, feel free to add them!

- Mod Rowan

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brazilianism

What’s going on in Brazil?

I don’t know which version this is anymore but it was written as of the 30th of March of 2021. 

Long story short, a third of the government or whatever (I don’t do math) quit or was fired this week.

Early Monday the Minister of Defense was fired. This led to five more secretaries and ministers quitting (among them the ministry for justice and public safety, the attorney general, and the international relationships minister, but that last one was already on it’s way since he got involved in a nazi scadal the week before [yeah] [we do not have the time to get into this on this post]). 

This morning the heads of the Army, the Navy and the Airforce also all resigned. 

Brazilians are all very anxious about this because we do not know what it means or how it will affect politics from now on. 

Let’s turn back a few days to understand the situation: the Bolsonaro government is under the biggest pressure it has ever faced. Today, there have been more than 3700 deaths by covid, and they have been above the 3k for over a week. The economy is bad - inflation is high, and if you turn on the television you will see campaigns for food donation, as we are officially back to people-are-starving-times. The government neglected and refused offers to buy vaccines when they were offered early last year, and we are far, far behind on the amount of doses that are needed, and the hospitals are full in most States. There were no hospital beds available in over 80% of the cities last week for anything. 

So, to say the least, they did not handle being a government well. But they could have gotten away with it, tbh, it wouldn’t even have been hard. What really changed the game in Brazilian politics this month was that our ex-president, Lula, is now apt to run for re-election in 2022. His judgment and condemnation were recently ruled as unfair and are being recalled (for those of you who don’t know, long story short: he was accused of corruption and was in prison so he couldn’t run in the 2018 elections, we can discuss this in a longer post if y’all are curious).

“Wait, wait, do you guys wanna elect a guy who was in prison????” 

well. here’s the thing. at this point I personally would elect ANYONE because it has become obvious that a horse holding a paint brush while ice-skating would make better decisions than our current president. But here’s the thing about Lula: he is beloved. This guy left the presidency with over 80% of approval. This was the man who took the country out of the lists of “countries with people starving” (yeah the ones we’re back into now). And while the corruption trials DID tarnish his image a lot (and i’m not even saying he’s innocent), he is still the most popular candidate to beat Bolsonaro.

So Bolsonaro is nervous, right? The men is a wreck, his approval is lower than ever (although still in the 30%’s), the country is in shambles and he now has a REAL political adversary. 

So we wake up to the news that he’s firing people. 

And we’re all fucking nervous because rumors on the capitol have it that the Minister for Defense was fired after what? after refusing orders to impose military orders on congress and/or on the supreme court. Oh, did I not mention that half the people the president named for cabinets and ministries are military, as is he? 

My bad. Yeah, it’s a government mostly composed by people from the military, also. 

Political analysts now have been seeing the situation in two different ways: (1) either everyone is quitting the boat and the government is melting down, or (2) this man is surrounding himself with loyal people to attempt a coup. And to be fair, if people are leaving because the government is dying (1), that also left a bunch of new spaces for Bolsonaro to do as he pleases with the seats, and maybe get more loyal people involved in whatever is on his head (2). 

To calm the waters, the vice-president [who is also a General] has claimed today that the Military is solid and “would not embark on any coup attempts”, which…….. while semi-tranquilizing, has not been true in history. Tomorrow, March 31st, marks the anniversary of our last (official) military coup-d’etat. It was only 57 years ago.   

So. I’m not saying there FOR SURE is gonna be a coup soon, or even that we are sure this is the plan, or that it would be successful (or that Bolsonaro has or hasn’t got the support to do it) - at this point it really is very hard to see through the mess and the chaos that the government purposefully very often creates as distraction. There are other theories, there are other opinions, and there are more details to this story, but one thing is certain: Bolsonaro is now a cornered animal, and those are the most dangerous. Perhaps this is why half his cabinets are emptying, perhaps it is not, but regardless, we will all have to keep our eyes very much open tomorrow and for the rest of his term. 

TLDR: Half the Bolsonaro government quit or was fired and we’re all fucking scared this is gonna somehow lead to a coup attempt but who the fuck knows. 

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gdfalksen

Chiune Sugihara. This man saved 6000 Jews. He was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Sugihara risked his life to start issuing unlawful travel visas to Jews. He hand-wrote them 18 hrs a day. The day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, witnesses claim he was STILL writing visas and throwing from the train as he pulled away. He saved 6000 lives. The world didn’t know what he’d done until Israel honored him in 1985, the year before he died.

Why can’t we have a movie about him?

He was often called “Sempo”, an alternative reading of the characters of his first name, as that was easier for Westerners to pronounce.

His wife, Yukiko, was also a part of this; she is often credited with suggesting the plan. The Sugihara family was held in a Soviet POW camp for 18 months until the end of the war; within a year of returning home, Sugihara was asked to resign - officially due to downsizing, but most likely because the government disagreed with his actions.

He didn’t simply grant visas - he granted visas against direct orders, after attempting three times to receive permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry and being turned down each time. He did not “misread” orders; he was in direct violation of them, with the encouragement and support of his wife.

He was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations in 1985, a year before he died in Kamakura; he and his descendants have also been granted permanent Israeli citizenship. He was also posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania (1993); Commander’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1996); and the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007). Though not canonized, some Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize him as a saint.

Sugihara was born in Gifu on the first day of 1900, January 1. He achieved top marks in his schooling; his father wanted him to become a physician, but Sugihara wished to pursue learning English. He deliberately failed the exam by writing only his name and then entered Waseda, where he majored in English. He joined the Foreign Ministry after graduation and worked in the Manchurian Foreign Office in Harbin (where he learned Russian and German; he also converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church during this time). He resigned his post in protest over how the Japanese government treated the local Chinese citizens. He eventually married Yukiko Kikuchi, who would suggest and encourage his acts in Lithuania; they had four sons together. Chiune Sugihara passed away July 31, 1986, at the age of 86. Until her own passing in 2008, Yukiko continued as an ambassador of his legacy.

It is estimated that the Sugiharas saved between 6,000-10,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jewish people.

It’s a tragedy that the Sugiharas aren’t household names. They are among the greatest heroes of WWII. Is it because they were from an Axis Power? Is it because they aren’t European? I don’t know. But I’ve decided to always reblog them when they come across my dash. If I had the money, I would finance a movie about them.

He told an interviewer:

You want to know about my motivation, don’t you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent.

People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people’s lives….The spirit of humanity, philanthropy…neighborly friendship…with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation—and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.

He died in nearly complete obscurity in Japan. His neighbors were shocked when people from all over, including Israeli diplomatic personnel, showed up at quiet little Mr. Sugihara’s funeral.

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fahrlight

I will forever reblog this, I wish more people would know about them!

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rhube

I liked this before when it had way less information. Thank you, history-sharers.

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mousezilla

Tucked away in a corner in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is a life-sized statue of Chiune, seated on a bench and smiling gently as he holds out a visa. 

The stone next to him bears a quote from the Talmud; “He who saves one life, saves the entire world.”  

I had no idea it existed until a few weeks ago, but it’s since become one of my favorite pieces of public art. 

Chiune Sugihara.  Original antifa.

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agirlinjapan

PBS made a documentary about Chiune Sugihara in 2005. If you’re interested in him, it’s definitely worth checking out. (The PBS link above even has some interactive information to go along with the film.) Ask your local library if they have a copy/can order you one from another library. You won’t be disappointed!

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dharmagun

i am going to find this and take him a present

always reblog mr sugihara

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chaoticum

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

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reblogged

if i had to commit a serious crime, one that would have me put in prison for life or have me labeled a felon for life, but would save thousands upon thousands of lives, maybe even millions, i believe that i would have a moral obligation to commit that crime, no matter what the cost to me individually.

would you do the same?

if even part of you believes that would be the right decision, then i am telling you that you must vote for biden in november. you must commit the crime against your own moral integrity to vote for the lesser of two evils, and you know why? because your moral integrity doesn’t mean shit to the people who are going to die under another four years of trump. that sense of superiority you feel in “refusing to participate” is fucking useless to the loved ones of the people who will die under four more years of trump.

does joe biden suck? absolutely. is kamala harris a cop who did really shitty things as attorney general? yep. but you don’t get to vote in a vacuum. you do not have the fucking luxury of sitting and waiting for candidates that tick all your boxes and have never hurt anyone.

yes, some people will still suffer under biden. yes, biden will do bad things. yes, by all that’s holy, i fucking wish we had a perfect candidate that we all agreed on. but this is the reality. there is no magical third option. there is trump or there’s biden. you have to grab hold of the trolley lever and pull this country onto the track with fewer casualties, because harm reduction fucking matters to the people whose harm will be reduced. 

because inaction is still an action, and it sides with those with the worst of intentions.

i know these choices suck. i know that the option of “less fascism” sucks. but what i don’t know is if in four years from now, any of us will still have the right to vote at all. 

four years ago, i begged people to vote for hillary clinton no matter how much they hated her. now a hundred and sixty thousand people are fucking dead under donald trump who wouldn’t have died under hillary clinton. no matter what other awful things she would have done, those people’s lives mattered. the anguish of their loved ones matters.

i don’t have the power to make the democratic presidential candidate someone who isn’t shitty. none of you do either. the only power that i have, that any of you have, is to vote, and then keep making good trouble to push our candidates further to the left. 

the right to vote is precious and it can be taken away. you have to vote like it’s the last time you’ll ever be able to.

four years of countless atrocities and crimes and horrors have come and gone, and i am here again to beg you to vote for the lesser of two evils. 

the lesser of two evils is our only fucking hope.

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What people think why i became a bookbinder: Oh she wants to explore her artistic horizon with those pretty leather bound books of hers. She even gives them out as gifts to her friends. It most likely helps her with anxiety or maybe she just wanted a more special costume made notebook.
Why I actually became a bookbinder: I just illegally downloaded and printed out several of my favourite fanfics and books and started binding them into books cuz I love reading them but looking at screens for too long gives me headaches.
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ghost-maybe

op youre fucking big brained oh my god

If you want to i can send you a link to some of the Tutorial videos i started binding my fanfic books.

cyanidevamp

PLEASE SEND ME THE LINK I WANT TO DO THIS SO BAD 

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alexstyx

PLEASE SEND LINKS OP PLEASE I BEG YOU

@laughuntilourribsgettough @starduststyx upon request: A tutorial playlist for my personal favourite bookbinding methods

  1. Longstitch binding

2)Japanese Binding

3) Belgian Binding

4) Coptic stitch binding

5) Case Bookbinding

this is the tutorial set I use for bookbinding! I've yet to try Secret Belgian, but it looks really cool.

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lizleeships

Folks, I have so much to say about this I can’t even begin, but this took me around 90 hours and it was truly a labor of fandom love. It’s by no means perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it thus far! I also need to acknowledge that it never would have escaped the tangled mulch fields of my brain without the genius inspiration/collaboration/editing on the part of the absolutely wonderful and lovely @malmuses who helped me at every juncture to put this part together. 

(Also, someone told me that Cas having an impala head was a little “on the nose”, and I decided to argue the point in a ten panel comic so… creating out of spite is really useful, sometimes;) 

(Spoiler: Also don’t worry, Cas is fine, he just kindly volunteered to provide me with a cliffhanger ;) 

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thelilwitch

BRs que vão votar esse ano:

Vamos juntas na política: Mobilização pra eleger mulheres em 2020. Debates, notícias e ações que você pode tomar.

Me representa: Plataforma que reúne dados sobre candidatos e suas posições políticas sobre gênero, raça, direitos LGBT, povos tradicionais e meio ambiente, trabalho, segurança, saúde e educação.

PANE (Plataforma Antirracista nas eleições): criada pelo Instituto Marielle Franco, disponibilizará diversas ações pra ajudar a mudar as estruturas das eleições 2020.

A primeira ação da PANE já está disponível: "Estamos pressionando o TSE para que eles voltem a debater e aprovem o pedido para distribuição proporcional de financiamento e tempo de propaganda para candidaturas negras nas eleições!"

Link pra pressionar o TSE: https://eleicoesantirracistas.com.br/

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reblogged
Anonymous asked:

What’s the difference between demiromantic and not?

Demiromantic people are on the aromantic spectrum. They only experience romantic attraction after developing an emotional connection with someone. 

Someone who is demiromantic wouldn’t get crushes on random people, or that guy you always see at the grocery store, but have never talked to. A demiromantic person would need to know him super well before even having a chance of feeling romantically attracted to him.

It DOESN’T mean that a demiromantic person feels romantic attraction towards everyone they form a close emotional bond with - it just means that it’s needed before it’s even possible.

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brazilianism

Como vamos sobreviver aos próximos quatro anos?

Estamos no quarto dia de governo e já deu pra sentir que a coisa não vai ser fácil - mas a gente já sabia disso. Então agora é hora de pensar em estratégia. Querendo ou não, a gente vai ter que passar por isso - e é nosso dever sobreviver da melhor maneira possível. 

Pra isso, eu acho importante a gente conversar sobre as estratégias do governo de propaganda e condução de narrativa. Todo governo tem uma, bora ver como lidar com a desse. Respira fundo que isso vai ser longo. 

Desde o período das eleições, tem que ter ficado claro pra todo mundo que se tem uma coisa em que essas pessoas são muito boas, essa coisa é lidar com redes sociais. “Ai mas olha esses memes que toscos” “putz mas o design dos ministérios tá péssimo” sim, tudo uma bagaceira mesmo pra quem tem um treinamento estético, mas gente:::: é estratégia. Ou ceis acham mesmo que não dava pro planalto ter os melhores designers que quisessem? assim como as fotos do dito cujo lavando roupa no tanque e comendo pão com leite condensado sem nem uma toalinha de mesa, a aparente ‘simplicidade’ e esse aspecto mais raiz, menos estético, mais medíocre, tem uma mensagem em si - e tem um objetivo propagandista. Que também é o mesmo objetivo do nosso presidente - e de outros presidentes - ao preferirem se comunicar oficialmente através do twitter do que indo a redes de comunicação tradicional. Ele não só controla a narrativa, como passa uma ideia de aproximação com a população sem intermédios burocráticos - ele é um outsider, afinal de contas, não? ele está lá pra “mudar isso daí”, não era isso? nada mais estratégico do que passar visualmente a informação da mudança - e da mudança pra algo… menos elitista. Que, pra nós, aqui militância da internet, soa como cafonice e vira meme. Newsflash, ou bora dizer em português pra já ir atuando, tapa na cara do dia: é isso que eles querem. Que vire meme mesmo. Bora explicar porquê. 

Lá fora, nos EUA, Rússia, a galera tá chamando esse processo de firehosing [significa algo como mangueira de incêndio, no sentido de despejar muita água ao mesmo tempo]. Aqui a estratégia tem suas próprias características, mas ainda segue um padrão e ainda tem os mesmo objetivos, então dá pra estudar os casos de lá pra entender o processo, caso queiram, aqui um bom vídeo em inglês sobre esses casos. Mas bora detalhar em português. A primeira fase é uma criação de um grande número de polêmicas. Nos EUA, tudo gira em torno de mentiras óbvias (tipo, “pessoas votaram ilegalmente em dois estados”), aqui não necessariamente - a polêmica pela polêmica funciona, como “meninos usam rosa, meninas usam azul” (era isso? rs), mas também tem uma quantidade grande de mentiras, vide a mamadeira de piroca, doutrinação comunista, queiroz vendedor de carros, etcs. “AH, então é tipo uma cortina de fumaça?” sim, mas não também. Sim, porque uma ideia mais primitiva é de criar distração, mas não do jeito que a gente geralmente tá acostumado - não é pauta bomba do congresso, como a gente costumava ver. Não é UM assunto de desvio - são múltiplos, são dezenas de polêmicas em um espaço curto de tempo que torna impossível a cobertura e discussão de tudo. É só pensar em quantas a gente já teve até agora, e só fazem 4 dias que o governo começou. Isso tem uma série de objetivos, para além de tornar o foco impossível.

Primeiro, mais obviamente, se espera até certo ponto vencer pelo cansaço. Com tanta coisa acontecendo, é fácil querer desistir de acompanhar.  Segundo - cria-se um primeiro nível de divisão - e aqui a coisa começa a ficar interessante:  se objetiva criar divisões entre a oposição - abram o twitter. A esquerda já tá brigando de novo porque metade das pessoas está discutindo um assunto X e a outra metade está gritando que aquilo não é importante, pois deveríamos estar discutindo Y. Logo, aparece mais alguma polêmica pra criar outro racha em Z. Isso faz com que não somente a própria oposição não consiga unidade e crie antipatias entre si - um momento perigoso pra isso, bem perigoso ficarmos tendo ainda mais brigas sobre quem é mais vítima ou mais importante - mas também faz com que fique mais difícil pra qualquer pessoa que não esteja REALMENTE apoiando o governo e tenha alguma curiosidade na oposição de se aproximar de nós. Além do que, as briguinhas e o modo como nós compramos qualquer provocação, mesmo que ínfima, nos torna… memes. E é difícil querer se associar a isso, vindo de fora, o que nos leva a… 

Terceiro: cria-se um segundo nível de divisão, entre a oposição militância e a população que talvez não tenha tanta convicção assim no presidente (mas o apoia), a partir de…orgulho. A partir do momento em que algumas dessas polêmicas se dão em torno de coisas relativamente populares - como a fala da ministra sobre meninos, ou design do planalto, ou as fotos “do povo” do presidente - e a esquerda começa a fazer memes e piadas a torto e a direito desses assuntos, o resultado é, rufem os tambores: antipatia por parte de uma grande parte da população. Se já é difícil por conta das divisões que alguém de fora se aproxime, fica ainda pior quando as pessoas ainda se veem ridicularizadas ou antipatizadas dentro do movimento. Em outro ponto, a linguagem que a gente costuma usar pra debater também não ajuda. Então, quando se lança uma polêmica de nível menor, se espera que ela vire meme nas nossas mãos, exatamente porque isso afasta mais ainda outras pessoas. Ah, e a coisa de ficar ridicularizando os arrependidos? Isso também. Inclusive, já existem ‘bots arrependidos’ também - pra quê? por quê os robôs seriam colocados nessa posição, eles os tais grandes defensores de tais ideologias? pois é, pra virar meme na nossa mão e criar o sentimento de antipatia por outra parte. A ratoeira foi montada, e infelizmente tá todo mundo caindo. 

Segunda fase da estratégia: desmentir as polêmicas. “Pera, quê?” pois é. Lembram quando B-Filho-número-3 jogava na roda alguma grande polêmica e aí papai vinha dizer que não era bem assim? “vamo fazer a pena de morte!” versus “não vamos não, calma”? Não deu 1 dia pra Ministra estar na televisão dando explicações - ainda que inconsistentes - sobre sua polêmica e assegurando que não iam fazer nada contra grandes direitos adquiridos por minorias. Mas quando essas coisas são desmentidas, elas já foram propagandas pela grande mídia - elas já passaram em todos os jornais, elas já foram debatidas a fundo em toda a internet, e já viraram memes na mão da esquerda e a esquerda já virou meme-por-estar-fazendo-meme na mão da direita. O efeito disso funciona da seguinte maneira: o eleitor bolsonarista ligou a televisão aquele dia e viu a mídia discutindo uma polêmica sobre o seu governo. Foi pra internet, e se viu ridicularizado por causa da tal polêmica. Algumas horas depois, vai ver seu presidente - ou alguém próximo - lhe assegurar que nada daquilo é exatamente assim. Talvez até lhe digam que a mídia e a oposição mentem. Porque olha ali, o cara em si tá dizendo o oposto! Putz. Realmente, não dá pra confiar em qualquer polêmica que passe nos jornais hoje em dia. - Onde essas pessoas vão procurar informação? Não vai ser mais nos jornais (e aqui podemos entrar nos MESES da discussão de fake news, que serviram pra isso também) - e não vai ser no jornalismo de internet de oposição, jamais, pelo que vimos na fase 1 - agora, esse eleitor ainda por cima tem raiva desse grupo. A informação que resta, e que vai ser escolhida com gosto, vai ser nas redes oficiais do presidente. E nas redes que ele recomendar. 

O problema central disso: essa estratégia coloca em cheque a própria noção de realidade em várias frentes. Na primeira fase, a oposição é obrigada a questionar suas próprias noções do que é real, do que existe - e não tem nada mais cansativo do que ser obrigado de novo e de novo a ter que provar algo que parece ser uma verdade óbvia (tipo “não existe kit gay!”), o que coloca em debate nacional a própria realidade do país. Na segunda fase, a própria base de apoio começa a questionar a noção de realidade que tem e no que pode ou não pode confiar, sendo induzida a confiar apenas em uma fonte central e duvidar das demais. O objetivo central do firehosing, no fim, é criar uma realidade que gire em torno do presidente. Ele constrói a narrativa que quiser - ele questiona o que nós temos como verdade e quebra as noções do que parecia sólido até então de forma tão frequente que, em algum momento, boa parte da população já não tem mais referencial. 

A oposição se divide e, enquanto questiona as próprias noções de verdade e relevância, afasta a outra parte da população que, ao se sentir mal representada, quando não insultada, vai se ver cada vez mais convicta de que só pode confiar naquele que elegeu, e de que os motivos que talvez a tenham levado ao voto são justificados. Está feito o estrago: um fã clube pessoal do presidente, uma oposição dividida e distraída, e talvez alguns poucos centristas bastante confusos que não conseguirão também se apegar a nada. 

“Fodeu, né. Como que a gente lida com isso?” eis a questão. Primeiramente, seria ideal se o jornalismo brasileiro pudesse segurar a barra de não cobrir polêmicas excessivamente, bloqueando um pouco a fase 2. Vai ser difícil, então vamos pros lados mais práticos. Nós temos que parar de tentar lutar por polêmica pequena, nós temos que parar de perder tempo debatendo entre NÓS o que é mais importante (difícil tarefa considerando a esquerda brasileira, eu sei), nós temos que parar de cair no conto de fazer meme ridicularizando eleitores do outro lado. Eu sei, é difícil pra caralho, a gente VIVE pra fazer meme, mas se é pra fazer, faz e manda no seu grupo de amigos do zap. Deixa lá. Faz a piada entre vocês. Não joga essa merda pra viralizar no twitter. Atualmente, é desserviço. Tá vendo uma parte da esquerda discutindo algo que você não julga importante? ao invés de fazer meme dizendo “olha lá essa parte RÍDICULA da esquerda” vai lá criar post sobre o que É importante. A gente não pode mais ser destrutivo agora. A parada é construir. E, acima de tudo, a gente tem que estar atento. A gente tem que ficar ligado. Não dá pra ficar pensando que é tudo trapalhada e fonte de meme e esquecer que política é estratégia. 95% das vezes, se alguma coisa ridícula aconteceu, tem alguém que vai se beneficiar disso em algum momento. A gente tem que se manter informado e se manter atualizado das estratégias de lá. É a única forma de conter o estrago. 

Por último mas não menos importante, é importante notar: eles sabem o que estão fazendo. E são bons nisso. Então, todo cuidado com a nossa própria segurança também é pouco. Aqui eu fiz um masterpost sobre segurança digital, e quero acrescentar mais esse site aqui, agora em português como fonte de informação. Em breve eu acho que vai ser hora da gente começar a pensar em estratégias de segurança pra possíveis manifestações etcs, mas esse post já tá grande o suficiente. Espero que tenha ficado claro, mas qualquer coisa o inbox tá aberto pra maiores dúvidas ^ 

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listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

  • The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice. 
  • Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship. 
  • Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom. 
  • The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.
  • The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster. 
  • The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?
  • The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies. 
  • Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories). 
  • Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism. 
  • Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.
  • Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.
  • In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children. 
  • Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities. 
  • The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul. 
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy. 
  • Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death. 
  • River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper. 
  • Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil. 
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality. 
  • Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist. 
  • Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues. 

for those of y’all who like goodreads I’ve started a shelf of adult books for ya fans, which is currently 40+ books strong and will continue to grow

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wanting and not wanting at the same time

a comic for asexual awareness week

bringing this back today for the start of pride month. still overwhelmed by how well this comic went down and with how many people relate. it’s easy to think aro-ace people are all totally accepting of their identities and really proud of who they are. i guess on websites like this you see a lot of people proudly putting their identity in their bio, a flag in their profile picture.

in fact i think a lot of aro-ace people really hate that part of themselves, hide it, and struggle for a long time to ‘accept’ who they are and feel any sense of ‘pride’. that’s the feeling i wanted to capture here. the disappointment, the loneliness, upon realising that you can’t feel what is such a wonderful thing. the embarrassment of not being ‘normal’, of being some random sexuality that nobody irl has heard of, and letting down those around you because you can’t be who they want you to be. how desperately you want to change, how desperately you want to feel. but you just can’t.

i know not all aro-ace people feel like this. i know lots of aro and/or ace people feel able to be in relationships, to feel closeness and have partners in other ways. but i think it’s important to be aware that some aro-ace people do feel like this.

the comments on this comic have mostly been great but a few have been very frustrating. a comment it got a lot was along the lines of ‘aw!! you don’t need to have sex to be in a relationship!’. you completely missed the point, hah. this is not a comic about sex. it’s about a lack of feeling, the lack of something beautiful other people seem to have. another comment that popped up a few times was ‘maybe she’s a lesbian’. well maybe lesbians and aro/ace girls have more in common than people think - maybe they both often struggle to accept that they feel no attraction to men, even though society has conditioned them to do so, sometimes spending years trying to force themselves to like men in that way, when they just can’t.

this comic is called ‘wanting and not wanting at the same time’ because she wants to love. but when it comes down to the reality, she can’t fulfil the requirements of that. she wants to love someone forever, to get married and have children and grow old with her soulmate, but she doesn’t want it with this person. or that person. or anyone she meets or will ever meet. a sort of catch 22, i guess.

hope that makes sense. thanks for listening, and have a lovely pride month ❤️