Identify as any race!
Identify with any paraphilia!
Identify with any mental disorder!
Identify with any age!
Identify as any person or thing or other!
You are what you are and what you say. <3
No ifs, ands, or buts. >:)
Backpacks with patches, well worn sweaters with darned elbows, beat up water bottles and tee shirts with more holes than fabric. I want to hear people talk about their oldest possessions with all of the excitement of influencers posting a haul. I want people to be excited about the idea of having things with the type of character that can only come from years of companionship and memories.
It's been brought to our attention that the original versions of the quidditism flags hel a lot of resemblance to the flag from a queer facsist group rising to "fame" lately.
At first, we elected to ignore it, but alas, nobody wants to be conflated with these people.
The flag has therefore been changed.
The old designs will stay up on this post and can of course still be used, but the main flag is now the one on the pinned/coining post.
Old flag designs:
New flag design:
Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality
Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway
Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups
Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay
Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward
Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient
Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative
Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!
Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community
DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!
Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?
Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.
Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability
Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough
Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing
Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work
Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market
Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question
Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them
Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area
Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...
Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable
Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact
Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive
Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people
Some women are conditioned to be fragile and weak, and to believe that it's a sin to outperform a man. Her feminism would involve allowing women to be strong.
Some women are expected to be strong at times when they can't. Her feminism would involve reassuring her that it's okay to not be strong.
Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're too stupid to ever amount to anything. Their disability activism would involve reassuring them that they're capable.
Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're smart and gifted, and are expected to live up to impossible standards. Their disability activism would involve allowing them to fail, make mistakes, be stupid, etc.
Some children are constantly reminded "you're the child, I'm the adult" in order to deny their autonomy. Their youth rights activism would involve treating them like an adult at times when they feel ready for it.
Some children are treated like adults in order to justify increased expectations or to downplay abuse against them. Their youth rights activism would involve allowing them to be a child.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to oppression. Each individual person's experience is different. Whatever trauma is caused by their oppression, the activism should focus on undoing it.
I can just imagine saying “lobotomies are bad” in like 1949 and having someone say “you’re wrong, the science is settled, lobotomies are the best way to treat mental illness” and guess what? In 1949 I might be the unpopular and socially wrong one. The person with the backwards, conservative thinking. That is the year that António Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize for lobotomies.
Lobotomies are still bad, but a lot of people have now understood that it’s a deeply harmful and anti-human practice. It was often performed on women (60% of cases were women in the US, a study in Ontario put women patients at 72%) and on gay men. Societal mores have changed on what is psychiatrically appropriate—many of these women were depressed and repressed housewives, or were not naturally submissive to their husbands and considered “combative”.
Many lobotomies were called “ice pick lobotomies” because they involved inserting an ice pick through the eye to sever the part of your brain that feels emotions. There were different techniques, largely dependent on which surgeon you saw. Norbert Wiener said in 1948, "Prefrontal lobotomy... has recently been having a certain vogue, probably not unconnected with the fact that it makes the custodial care of many patients easier. Let me remark in passing that killing them makes their custodial care still easier."
In 1944, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease ran an article saying, “The history of prefrontal lobotomy has been brief and stormy. Its course has been dotted with both violent opposition and with slavish, unquestioning acceptance."
Walter Freeman called the practice “surgically induced childhood”—he specialized in lobotomies and performed them until 1967, so he found this to be a good outcome. In fact, he worked on an “assembly line” process where he could lobotomies 20 people a day, and even did a surgical procedure face-off with another doctor in 1948 to compete in an operating theatre to show an audience of doctors that his technique was superior. The other professor was a professor at Yale, William Beecher Scoville, another famous lobotomist known for proliferating the procedure. They called it a miracle cure, and the gold standard for psychiatric treatment.
Scoville’s most famous patient, Henry Molaison, was a 7-year old boy with epilepsy after a fall from his bike. Scoville couldn’t find the problem, so he just destroyed all three regions of Henry’s temporal lobes. Afterwards, the surgeon noted memory loss “so severe as to prevent the patient from remembering the location of the rooms in which he lives, the names of his close associates, or even the way to the toilet or the urinal.”
Scoville’s wife sought psychiatric care after her husband cheated on her and she had a breakdown. Her husband lobotomized her himself.
In the 1960s, when schizophrenia became a radicalized charged diagnosis that was often used against Black people, especially those involved in the civil rights struggle. Walter Freeman did several pushes to lobotomize Black people, including as young as five, for “hyperactive and aggressive behavior”.
The practice continued in some places until the 1980s. It was used to treat schizophrenia, affective disturbance (mood disorders and people reacting in non-mainstream ways like being an opinionated woman or gay), and OCD, chronic neurosis (anxiety), psychopathic disorders, and depression, among other things. You may notice the old names for these things—things that we might not consider the same way now. Being gay was a mental disorder. Women who wanted independence or respect were often diagnosed. Not fulfilling your traditional societal role was a good way to end up institutionalized.
It was considered, at time of invention, to be an humane alternative to insulin comas and shock therapy (ECT). Many people considered it lifesaving and gold standard treatment for mental illness. Some reports believe that about a third of patients found the procedure beneficial. Others faced dementia, death, incontinence, inability to speak, paralysis, and other effects. Many people were unable to ever leave care again afterwards, though they were more complacent.
I don’t think any scientist who tells you that science is settled is a good scientist. I think that treatments that target people who don’t fit the mold of society, people who are countercultural, and people from marginalized groups should be especially criticized. Psychiatry is a very new field. Part of the phasing out of lobotomies had to do with the development of the first medications for psychiatric use—which in turn have had their own social, political, and ethical conundrums and misuse. Many could consider Valium (“mother’s little helper”) the spiritual successor to the lobotomy.
But in 1949, if I said lobotomies are bad—I might have been met with “Do you hate mentally ill people?” “It works great for most people!” “Without it, she will just be depressed and kill herself” or “My friend did it and all her problems seem better now”.
Lobotomies were bad the whole time.
The Daddy's Little Toy author situation just goes to show how anti ideology has hurt people. Like an author is in jail for fiction fucking fiction! From what I know the author is placed in prison or is being held in jail awaiting sentencing currently. For from what I'm gathering a completely fictional story. You don't have to like what she's writing to think that people shouldn't go to jail over fiction. That the thing. Also who the hell gets to decide what is and isn't simply vent or awareness spreading and what is and isn't titillating. Also many trauma survivors create vent art that may sexualize their trauma but it's still vent art. I understand Australia's free speech laws are different than America's but this is the same country that's forcing people to upload their ID to access any social media site essentially. You don't have to like the story to essentially say "you shouldn't go to jail for that". Fiction is not and never will be equivalent to actual CSAM. And supporting obscenity laws will never be for the benefit of the public. And it's harmful to equate real CSAM with fucking fiction. You cannot be anti-censorship for fiction and then draw the line at things you don't like . Like imagine if your horny Sebaciel fanart put you in JAIL under CSAM charges. With the same cell as real people who actually exploited real children or wanted to look for and use real exploited children. "Stop imposing your American views on everything!". How is it imposing my American views to say that free speech should be a right for everyone not just people on America and that thought crime isn't real and shouldn't be normalized. Studies don't show a causal link between consuming dark romance media and actually committing abusive acts or consuming fictional depictions of CSA and actually harming people if anything artistic expression can get out some pent up frustration. People with intrusive thoughts may have intrusive sexual thoughts about inappropriate things and write them down what if those are found and it's considered CSAM even if it's fiction? Like thought crime as a concept should not be normalized. Fiction is fiction. I've only seen the snipbits going around social media. But like I hated it thought it was gross so I refused to listen to it anymore and went about my day. No one should go to jail over fiction yes even if that fiction has problematic themes. For example I am. Trans person I don't think anyone should go to jail for writing a transphobic book. I might hate the author but I won't advocate for their arrest and imprisonment. Like I've seen and stumbled upon much horny Sebaciel fanart and I don't think any of those artists should go to jail or be on a register with people who've actually exploited or aides in the exploitation of REAL CHILDREN. Obscenity laws are bad things and we shouldn't normalize them. From what I've heard the book doesn't even talk about sexual contact between an adult and minor it mentions the audit man listing I've the character when they were a minor but many non-banned dark romance books have that and the writers aren't jailed. Obscenity laws are bad. No one should be in jail over fiction.
just found this while scrolling and it seems remarkably similar to consistent progressivism but with contrasting values; wanted to ask what are the core fundamentals of quidditism and how does it compare to consistent progressivism; what would be some key differences between the two stances /neu
We could be considered similar for 2 aspects.
First one is, we're radqueer adjacent, and so are they. That means being pro-para, pro-bodily autonomy, pro-transid, and profiction for example.
The second similarity is that contrary to the radqueer community, that is closer to the MOGAI community on this point, we are not just a community for people to be themselves. We would like to do some activism as well, a trait we share with consistent progressivism.
However, the similarities stop there, and thank goodness.
I am working on an article about this, but they are basically fascists that covered themselves in rainbows. For a quick explanation, I reblogged this post (link) that explains the basics pretty well.
But let me give you the three main differences.
First: science denial. They redefine words and consider using Google and dictionaries as being conservative. Here is a screenshot of their Discord server.
In the thread linked to this, they list words that are conservative to use in their opinions. These words include parent, family, adult, anarchy, biology and age, amongst others.
Second: they believe everyone can consent to everything. Here is their resources about this. We quidditists have much needed nuance on this subject.
Third: to preface this, I'll start by sharing a screenshot of their definition of conservatism.
In short, they define anyone who holds discriminatory views as a conservative.
In practise, anyone that does not fully agrees with them is labelled a conservative. I won't get into it here, but it is one of the few cult tactics they use: the "Us vs Them" mentality.
Now, the bigger problem with this, is that they wish to violently genocide and torture everyone they see as conservative. They talk about this quite often in their Discord server, and even asks new members to describe how they would torture and violate a conservative in order to get verified.
Here is proof of them wanting to unforce this violence on everyone they label a conservative.
(other than their graphic & Discord sticker, the black & white images are quote pics made with a bot from messages on their servers, that they keep in a special channel)
Quidditism advocates for violence to only be used if you need to, as a last resort, and strictly as much as necessary and humane. Aka no torture, rape, slavery,...
I hope this clears things up! And thank you for your good faith question! /g
If anyone has any more questions, please send them my way! I'd be happy to answer them! /g