This is not a spoiler free blog.
No TERFs allowed.
She/her. Cis/greyace. Warning you now, there will be random spamming from obscure or long dead fandoms. Multifandom, so if you follow me for one thing, good luck. If there's anything you want me to tag, let me know.
I owe a lot to that vanished group. Were you in it? I miss you. Made this short comic for Dirty Diamonds #4- breakups. If you missed it at MICE and SPX this year, it’ll be at Asbury Park Comic Con in 2014, and fingers crossed for TCAF.
this comic is ten years old!!!! The obfuscated forum was a matrix fanfic/RP guild on neopets around 2000-2001 . I’ve never been able to find any of the people in it, but I still think a lot about the slightly older mod who ran it and the folks I bumped into in fandom spaces who helped me figure out how to survive online; I owe a lot to them.
sorry to rant i’mjust saying i would hate to be a writer making queer media these days cause i’d be putting my characters through conflicts and story elements and my fellow queer 20somethings would start calling me homophobic just because they decided to make my story into their safe space
It’s Friday of Ace Week, and I feel like I need to articulate something.
A month or so ago, I was signing at a convention, and I kept getting a specific ask from adults: “Are your books clean?”
And I didn’t know what to say. I write for teens. There’s body horror, violence, swearing, underage drinking, child abuse/neglect, forced marriage, discussion of past sexual assault, the magic system is essentially “take drugs made out of gods,” dirty jokes by the bushel. Sex itself is discussed and depicted with, I hope, all the awkwardness, silliness, and earnestness that rings true for teen characters, as well as respect for the intended teen audience.
But to the people asking for “clean books,” it’s usually just that last one they’re interested in. (Followed by swearing.)
I think, when your book is flagged as an Ace Book, some readers just expect a prominent ace character… and some readers expect a Clean Book. Something pure and wholesome,where sex doesn’t exist and no one thinks dirty thoughts, it’s just chaste hand-holding and cuddles and maybe a closed-mouth kiss.
That is deeply, deeply unfair to ace readers and writers. A lot of us have spent and/or will spend a lot of our lives, from adolescence onward, trying to figure out exactly what our relationship is with sex. What we want, what we don’t want, when we want it, if we want it, if we even tolerate it. Asexuality is a spectrum for a reason; to expect ace work to be “clean” denies it the room to assert its full identity.
I write for the teens who are told they’re “just late bloomers” because they aren’t interested in dating, while their saved AO3 searches would obliterate the Vatican. My books are not Ace as in No Dirty Thoughts, they are Ace as in Deconstructing the Scam of Compulsory Allosexuality. And that doesn’t have to be for you. But it doesn’t make it any less ace. It is not abandoning asexuality. It doesn’t make them “impure.”
Happy Ace Week, y'all.
(I decided, by the way, that my standard answer to “are your books clean” is a simple “Yes.”)
this is for the people who don’t believe that sharing videos and tweets is doing anything we NEED people to see that there are very real consequences for fake reporting we NEED them to know that they are neither welcome nor save among the people in solidarity with Palestine
hey because i’ve been seeing a few of those bighuge boycott lists for palestine going around, reminder that the actual bds website is not calling for a boycott of so many companies.
bds activists are calling for a boycott of eight companies/products specifically:
hp (hewlett packard)
siemens
axa
puma
israeli fruits and vegetables (not a company—all produce labelled as coming from israel)
sodastream
ahava cosmetics
sabra
this list and the reason for the boycotts of these companies specifically is easily accessible on their website at this link.
also from their website, on the same page:
“What about those boycott lists with tens of products?
The global nature of today’s economy means that there are thousands of companies that have links to Israel and are complicit to various degrees in Israel’s violations of international law. However, for our movement to have real impact we need our consumer boycotts to be easy to explain, have wide appeal and the potential for success. That’s why globally, while we call for divestment from all companies implicated in Israel’s human rights violations, we focus our boycott campaigns on a select few strategic targets. We also encourage the principle of context sensitivity, whereby activists in any given context decide what best to target and how, in line with BDS guidelines. There is a lot of information online claiming that some large companies give money to Israel, some of which turns out to be false. BDS has built a reputation for strictly adhering to established facts and producing the most accurate information.”
[image description: two diagrams. the first shows white lines pointing to various red dots. there are only one or two lines pointing to each dot. some lines don’t appear to be pointing at anything in particular, and some dots are not being pointed to. this diagram is labelled “Not targeted consumer boycott”.
the second diagram shows many lines pointing at the same single dot. all of the lines are focused and they are completely surrounding the dot. this diagram is labelled, “A targeted consumer boycott focuses on a small number of companies”. end description.]
this is all to say that while those 20-item-long boycott lists and their spread are usually well-intended, they are not helpful or necessary at this point in time. not buying from disney or walmart is not as effective and influential as refusing to buy products coming directly from stolen palestinian land. convincing people they need to remember a giant list of companies and products to not support will only intimidate them out of doing anything at all.
if you want to participate in the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement, please please PLEASE get your information from an organized group of activists who are involved, not (just) from stuff you see going around on twitter. the overview of the movement can be looked at on their website at this link. they also have resources about what else to do and how to get involved in your own community.
palestine WILL be free, and it will be free with focused organization.
edit: bds is also encouraging a boycott of carrefour, a company which is not included on the page about their other active boycotts. you can read about this boycott specifically on their website at this link.
in this twitter thread from october 23rd, which you can view at this link on a separate website, bds also discusses pressuring the following companies:
papa john’s
mcdonald’s
domino’s
burger king
pizza hut
however, i can’t find any reliable information outside of this twitter thread where they call for a strategic, targeted boycott of these companies. that doesn’t necessarily mean not to boycott these companies too, but right now, what they are advocating most is the continued targeting of the nine companies they are specifically calling for to be boycotted.
The hero’s identity was accidentally revealed, but it turns out they are moderately poor, have no friends or family, and their civilian life is frankly…sad.
To everything turn, turn, turn/There is a season turn, turn, turn/And a time to every purpose under/Heaven/A time to be born, a time to die/A time to plant, a time to reap/A time to kill, a time to heal/A time to laugh, a time to weep
“Honestly the song itself doesn’t fuck me up so much, it’s just a bible verse made into a song, but my aunt requested that my sisters and I sing it at her funeral, and it was the first I’d ever heard of it, and now every time I hear it I start bawling. It’s been over four years since she passed and I miss her so much.”
