Does anyone have an update on where things are at with the writers strike? It's disappeared from my various feeds and algorithms.

The writers' strike is ongoing and the studios are still not returning to the negotiating table. Unfortunately a lot of the coverage has tapered off because we're on 50+ days of striking and it's not new anymore. The last strike in 2007 lasted 100 days, so don't be surprised if this strike lasts as long, or even longer.

The biggest recent news is that the Directors' Guild of America (DGA) voted to ratify their new agreement with the studios (article from June 23), and it appears likely that the actors' guild (SAG-AFTRA) will also take a deal instead of striking (article from June 24). Although this is disappointing news, it's completely expected. During previous strikes, the WGA held its own without other unions going on strike. Which is to say—don't be disheartened by the news that there won't be a triple strike. The WGA is strong enough!

Please keep vocally supporting the WGA online to keep the pressure on the studios & to keep WGA members motivated and encouraged! There are many ongoing donation drives, such as the Star Trek fan snack squad (Twitter account required to DM the organizer) and the Our Flag Means Death snack squad (opens the PayPal fundraising page—no Twitter required). There's a longer list of ongoing donation drives here.

The Entertainment Community Fund is also always accepting donations to support entertainment workers affected by the strike. Please boost and encourage your friends to keep supporting the strike. Hashtag #IStandWithTheWGA #DoTheWriteThing to boost the cause!

Hi, WGA strike captain here, and I just want to say that the other unions taking contracts is NOT disappointing news. I feel like a lot of people are forgetting that the point of this isn’t to take a strike, it’s to get a good deal.

DGA, we can quibble over whether it’s a good deal or not. (I personally think everyone got too excited about a triple strike summer and forgot that the DGA was simply never going to strike)

But SAG-AFTRA? They got an absolutely killer strike authorization vote. They walked into negotiations with a loaded gun. That plus the fact that with everything shut down most actors aren’t working right now anyway, their leadership is incentivized to hold out for a deal with everything they want in it. Many of those demands overlap with ours, especially concerns about AI, which SAG membership is VERY fired up about.

If SAG gets a great deal with everything they want, then that’s GOOD for us. If the AMPTP were still fucking with them the way they fucked with us, “rejected our offer, refused to counter,” then that means the AMPTP isn’t feeling the pain of strike and doesn’t care how long this strike goes and is happy to stonewall indefinitely. But if they’re giving into the actors? Fuckkkk they’re hurting and this means they might actually come back to the table with us and negotiate in good faith finally. And if SAG gets strong language about AI, you bet your ass we’re going to argue for the same thing.

The DGA built on the writers strike to get a better deal. SAG is hopefully building on the writers strike and what DGA got to get an even better deal. And we’re hopefully going to build on our strike and what DGA and SAG got to get an even better deal. We’re all working together!

The point is not to strike, the point is to get a good deal. I think SAG will, and in my opinion that’s a massive win for us.

absofuckinlutely not

You’re just continuing a long line of retail tradition babey

....you’re lying...you must be...

noooooo

Bread and circuses

283,000 likes………giant meteor strike the earth rn holy shit. oh my god.

"maybe it's not your pussy" is such a funny phrase and also correct. People wonder why chores are so hard and it's like, friends we used to have a whole intergenerational team on this and now Grandma is locked in a beige box. Cooking is hard.

"My hormones and general health improved once I stopped being overworked." No fucking shit, Sherlock.

It's almost as if women are still suffering from being expected to carry double or even triple loads as caretakers, housewives and full time workers while also fighting on two fronts against both capitalism and the patriarchy.

I’m sure this will hit the news soon but just in case it’s not out yet — the Governor of Maryland just signed an executive order tonight declaring Maryland a sanctuary state for trans people seeking gender-affirming care, and for all people who provide such care or help trans people access such care. This executive order includes an explicit refusal to cooperate with law enforcement/prosecutors in any other state where accessing, providing, or helping people access such care is now or will soon be criminalized.

Yes it is absolutely a privilege to be able to travel or to think about moving but if someone can access the resources to move or visit to get what they need to survive and be less likely to be actively targeted for LITERAL EUGENICS AND GENOCIDE, then they should and we should support them.

Please spread the word.

Minnesota is also a sanctuary state, welcome trans people!

It hasn't hit the news yet but you can find the order here!

Just putting this out there to let people know to watch what they post because you can be found and if you think that the government can't do this ...

Well, you better think again!!

watching reddit go into a full death spiral is like watching the specifically trans equivalent of the library of alexandria go up in flames

like yes reddit is also the only place on the internet you can get an actual answer to any question in general. but it’s also a huge centralized community database about which surgeons will fuck you over, who takes what insurance, which doctors you can trust, how to write a template therapist’s letter, insurance appeals, peer support, questions that feel too stupid to ask anywhere else, diy guidelines, “hey this is embarrassing but,” finding trans people in your area, explaining why you need PTO without getting way too personal about it, safety tips, et cetera you get the picture

Someone on trans Reddit just bought the url transgender.org and have put out a call for folks to help turn it into a replacement (and more). Here's a link on r/ftm but it's open to everyone

This is still one of the greatest things ever made.

happy pride month

so I go to animation school now

please unmute this

That was… not what I expected it to be but I am delighted

What did the people of Tumblr ever do to deserve this

We are not worthy

I saw this and had to make the plushie version, it’s such a cute elephant design!

HOLY FUCKIN SHIT I AM LOSING MY MIND, YOU ARE SO TALENTED

stop saying "gen z brought back bush-era purity politics" i grew up in the bush era and even then people weren't saying that you're a sex addict for having boring marital sexual congress in the same house as your children. this is just plain unhinged

Literally almost every millennial I know has a memory of accidentally walking in on their parents or hearing their parents having sex. It's fucking normal. Human beings have sex. Your parents fuck. Get over it. Being weird about it isn't healthy.

I really loved Robert Evans’s response to this

Look. Look. When I was in fifth grade, I went through the sex ed unit at school. I learned how my body was going to change, I learned how boys’ bodies were going to change, and I learned those changes meant that if we had sex, we could make a baby or swap germs OR both!

Like two weeks afterwards, they announced over the intercom that one of the fifth grade teachers and his wife were expecting a baby. My class clapped and cheered. I sat there horrified. Had everyone else just forgotten the disgusting method through which babies were made? They just announced that the teacher and his wife had been having s-e-x!

Anyway I realized that wasn’t the popular opinion so I kept it to myself. Told my parents about it last month while laughing hysterically at how fucking weird I was back then. Turns out, I’m asexual! Didn’t know that at 10. Didn’t even have a word for it.

Turns out, people are fucking every day! Turns out, the vast majority of this fucking is done in a way that does not actually hurt children, even if they are in the same house! Much like 10 year old me, sitting appalled amidst 20 other children in a portable classroom going “aww, babies!”, these people need to get over themselves.

(At least I had something of an excuse! Baby’s first asexual moment)

Literally... "turns out people are fucking every day" needs to be said and said often because there is no better way to say it. People are way too quick to forget sex is just ordinary, it's not a religious holiday or anything rare and a big huge deal... it is indeed an every day thing just like a birthday. It's not your birthday but its someone else's out there all the time every day??? Its actually what makes birthdays. Literally people are fucking every day and crying and laughing and eating and working and resting and shopping and walking and studying everyday too. The thing is children are frequently traumatized during everyday activities including those I just listed... because children are ALIVE people, they are going to be "exposed" to life! Over half of the people I've met who walked in on their parents were given the birds and bees the next day or even a few moments after. Like this is probably one of the most common ways people learn those specific facts of life. Trauma does not mean irreparably damaged and needs to be coddled. No one goes through life without a 'trauma.'

i looked at queeringthemap today and had a good cry but these especially touched me

yeah.

No matter where you are in the world you aren't alone

The World Of Becca Blake

Art by Dan Schkade

i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing

sometimes someone is acting selfish because they just didnt think you had any interest in what theyre hogging. sometimes you dont get invited to the movies because your friend could have sworn that you said no. sometimes you think someone is mad at you because theyre bad at hiding how little sleep they got. we are all like little worlds that briefly crash into one another from time to time and we just arent physically capable of seeing the whole picture at once in those moments. and learning that really changed everything!

Love bombing is not a euphemism for "too much affection too soon," or "high desire for contact."

"Love bombing" is a term originally used in the context of cults to describe a deliberate and coordinated recruitment method that involved feigning friendship and interest in a potential recruit, via flattery, flirtation, physical affection, and very directed positive attention to everything the recruit says in order to lure them into the cult.

Since cults and abusive relationships operate in similar ways and use similar tactics, love bombing in an interpersonal relationship looks like manufacturing closeness in order to trap someone into a relationship in which the abuser has all the control.

And I know these days there's a million bullshit junky articles out there that make you think this is a symptom of cluster b personality disorders, but there is no way for you to be love bombing somebody without realizing it.

If you are an affectionate person and the level of affection and attention you give makes someone uncomfortable, you are not "accidentally" abusing them.

If you are uncomfortable with the level of affection and attention someone is paying you, they are not de facto abusing you.

Love bombing is about using someone's desire for human connection to fast track them into a situation you control that they will feel disinclined to leave.

Perhaps the funniest thing that could have happened lately was that this anticapitalist cafe and community space near my place was shutting down near the end of May - but because so many Texas and Florida conservatives celebrated it online, the place got a huge donation to keep operating

It's a great place. It functions mostly like a regular cafe but it has this free/pay what you want drip coffee for anyone who wants it, free bathroom use, and it stocks indie merch and books on antifascist, queer, leftist, socialist, indigenous topics. I've met a lot of awesome people there.

Its very existence enrages conservatives, and anarchocapitalists who tried to claim it only to be shown the middle finger by its anticapitalist owner, who is an all around nice dude (and a fellow Elden Ring fan)

If you can toss a coin to its continued operation, please do! Upon request from their followers on insta they opened a Gofundme. Even just a few dollars will be a huge help.

TV Executives: “if the strike goes on, you won’t get new episodes of your favorite shows! You won’t get new movies you were looking forward to! Isn’t that terrible, what the writers are doing to you?”

Me: Bitch, that might have been an effective threat in 2007, but we have since survived a Covid shutdown and discovered ways to amuse ourselves while we waited, we can outwait this shit, too. I got a pile of shows saved I haven’t even watched yet, and a Mt. TBR waiting for me.

Compensate (and respect) your writers for their work, assholes.

And the thot plickens….

HOLY FUCK

SAG-AFTRA = Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

More info:

- The actors walk off at the end of June if the studios don’t sit down with the writers

- Rumor is directors will follow. This will grind everything to a halt.

- Nobody is asking for a boycott. Neil Gaiman has pointed out that making Good Omens S2 a huge hit actually puts more pressure on Amazon to negotiate with the writers

- This implies it’s okay to catch up on old streaming content without breaking the line too

- This is a screenwriter strike; books will keep coming out.

- Movies already made will keep coming out for months. Again, actors have not called for a boycott; you aren’t breaking the line if you go see a movie.

- I don’t know where this puts podcasts but none of them have studio funding or platforms so they’ll probably keep going.

- Substack/Tumblr book club are all public domain works and will keep going. In addition to Dracula Daily there’s Whale Weekly, Dickens Daily, My Dear Wormwood (The Screwtape Letters), Letters from Watson (Sherlock Holmes) and more.

- Your local library always needs love. With the Libby app you don’t even need to physically go there.

Been thinking a lot about reminiscing about the past and how easy it is to get stuck fixating on when Everything Was Definitely Better. And when I think about why those kind of memories are so rosy, I think the trap lies in the fact that anything remembered in hindsight has been stripped of its uncertainty.

Any moment you're living in currently is gonna be weighed down by the things you're anticipating, which have no resolution yet and require your active attention to address and fix. There's a bill coming due that you need to think about paying. There's a test coming up you're worried about. There's a performance review. There's a weird tension with your friend who says everything's fine but you think that's a lie. There's a family event coming up you need to figure out how to say no to. And the good in your life right now, the fun and the joy, is trying to exist in parallel with all your ongoing uncertainty.

But for any time in your past you reflect on, those things are all resolved already. That bill from three years ago was paid, and you probably don't even remember specifically writing the check. The test happened and you maybe hardly remember it. The performance review, the family event, the whatever that occupies your headspace in the Now and the Ongoing, are all resolved. And this lets you reflect back on the good and fun you were having and see it in this rosy context secure in its complete lack of uncertainty. Nostalgic for college. Nostalgic for an old town. Nostalgic for a Then which maybe wasn't actually better than Now. There's a sense of security in a certain past, crystalized with its sharp edges swaddled away by the very passage of time that has distanced you from it.

Please don't fall for it. Don't mourn a past you never really experienced. Every Now will have thorns. Even the very good Nows.