If You've Been Hearing Less About Gaza Lately, It's Because Most Of The Journalists Are Dead. Hassan

Y'all are amazing. Reblog to hug the person you’re reblogging from.

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

The last days of the petition against conversion therapy are FASCINATING to watch. I have been following it pretty closely for almost a year now, and the progress was, above all, steady. There was this jump when some algorithm in Finland picked it up, but even that was local.

And now, everyone is panicking.

Which really shows.

These past three or four days, multiple countries have reached the threshold. Even more notably, the number of signatures in total, the ones that we need to get one million of, are growing rapidly. There are only 400'000 signatures missing. Two days ago, it was closer to 600'000.

You can see the progress here:

eci.ec.europa.eu

European Citizens' Initiative

Give your support !

Consider joining the fun by making everyone around you sign it!

thank you Canada 🇨🇦

some of you are very nice to me and i just want to say thank you and i love u

This feels like another writing prompt idea which is completely unrelated to my current NaNoWriMo project but one that I will still work on

Person A: “This feels like a missed opportunity.”

Person B: “ This feels like a crime.”

Dreamlike Laughter

Reality kisses his sleepless nights, until he dreams of her again.

“Really wish you weren’t here anymore, love,” Milas tells Zimi, sitting by the window of his apartment. When he squints outside, the moonlight gleams too sharply off of the blades of grass. 

He needs to tell her tonight. Right here in the dreamscape she made for them to meet across the mountains and rivers between. 

She barks out a short laugh, but her shoulders hunch. She begins, “I don’t know who I can trust enough to practice this type of spell. I truly didn’t know I was bothering, hones—”

‘I miss sneaking mom’s pastries to you and spending all night awake because you got a new board game and you’re a horrible, horrible cheater and.’ Words. Words tangle in his mouth, so he blurts out, ‘And, I miss all the ands.’

Quick as a wildfire, she grasps his face with both her hands. He never feels them, but he can see her dark eyes looking into his sandy ones. In these moments, he thinks her a phantom. That the sentinels who swore their loyalty to her killed her before she could cross the city’s borders. With their history, the years stretching like scars on knobby knees and dolls, he could create something real enough to fool him. 

Something creaks, like twigs snapping under a wheel. It takes Milas back to the evening before, his hand digging into Elijah’s wheelchair, light stubble not smooth skin, and soft hair brown not black under his hands. When he pulls away abruptly, she puts her hands up in surrender. 

The view outside the window fades into fog, but so do the corners of his room. He needs to tell her. 

‘I’m sorry, Kazimiera’ he chokes out. ‘I don’t deserve you.’ He slips onto his knees. Promises broken in a heartbeat, heartbeats jackrabbitting with Elijah’s laugh and the way he calls him endearments in something called French, and Milas was such a fool for the litany of mon chou, trésor, amour. 

After a pause she says, ‘You kissed someone? ’

He shakes his head vehemently, ‘I didn’t, but I wanted to. I almost did.’

The world stills, or maybe it’s too loud in his head: exile, treason, Elijah. The fog obscures his vision until he can’t see anything past the table. 

She grins up at him as if he’s the stupidest person on the planet, and asks, ‘And selfishly hoard your heart all to myself? I couldn’t fit it in the biggest rooms of the palace.’

All air rushes out of his lungs in a sharp exhale, dizzy with relief until he is gasping in short breaths—her forgiveness cooling the splinters under his skin. 

When she leans forward to speak in his ear to tell her about him, he is back at the couch with a flickering lamp’s terrible wiring. 

He is still talking about him when the fogs submerges him fully.

When he opens his eyes, Elijah’s laughter down the hallway is made of dreams. 

i am become OR a sonnet for the macbeths

The drink in Laila’s hand sloshes crimson and ribbon thick when she picks it up, the metal of her prosthetic hand clinking against the shot glass. The taste of copper and nickel coats the roof of her mouth as she downs it in one go, and then sneers at the way her tongue tries to chase the taste again. She quickly sneaks a glance to find no one watching.

The TV blares—the brightest object in the room, the fluorescent bulbs and lights content to mingle in the dark. Clad in glamour and glitz, the throng of people on the dance floor shake and grind, rake their hands up their bodies and others in a psychedelic haze of sweat and spit.

Through the crowd, a fairy’s wings shimmer as he clashes his mouth against a translucent man. Their pulse hammers to the beat of an indie rock song by the Vampire Weekend. She snorts at the irony.

Then, a scream pierces through her head. She exhales sharply, clutching her head in her hands. Spots of color block her vision, and she slams her eyes shut, only to see an inverted image of a man. Please, not again.

She scrambles to throw a wall in her mind and forces her eyes wide open. One moment, the man is sitting in front of her tangible and in full technicolor, a cut splitting his cheekbone and water dripping down his blue lips. The next, he flickers out until she is staring at the rows of wine bottles.

Another person, dead. Nine in the past fortnight.