Cheers Queers

i gotta b real with u chief: tony stark is the best character in the entire mcu and he deserves endless amounts of respect and love

the other day on okcupid, I saw someone’s profile. we were a 98% match, so I clicked. they seemed decent, so I clicked on the questions we disagreed on, and on ‘if every adult in my country owned a gun, would I feel more or less safe?’ they’d put unsure, and written something in the comments about a ‘people’s militia’. I messaged them, and after a bit of back and forth, I asked them flat out if they would be willing to kill for the revolution. They said yes. I blocked them. 

I really don’t know how we’ve gotten to a point in online discourse where it’s become a #hottake to say that Killing People Is Wrong. There are posts on here with thousands of notes about how we should kill all pedophiles/rapists/abusers, and while I understand the need to condemn these people in the strongest terms and make it clear that they have no place in our community, advocating for the killing of people is and always will be wrong. 

Even if you call it ‘clear hyperbole’ - that you don’t actually mean xyz should be killed - how do you know that the thousands of people in the notes understand that? There are clear parallels between this and what the alt-right does. They draw people in with irony and hyperbole, ready to jump up and say it’s all a joke when called on it - but at the end of the day, they’ve managed to normalise and spread their ideas without anyone noticing. 

There have been many cases of people actually murdering those they believe to have committed crimes against children. “Ironic, playful content can have effects in real life.” (link) Such was the case of the man who “turned up at Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington DC with a gun after imbibing too deeply of the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The theory was ginned up by forum trolls and amplified by fringe rightwing media. It asserted, on the basis of some of John Podesta’s leaked emails, that the restaurant was the hub of an elite pedophile ring. Last December, [he] drove to Washington from North Carolina with three firearms. When he arrived, he texted a friend: ‘Raiding a pedo ring, possible sacrificing the lives of a few for the lives of many.’ He fired shots inside the restaurant, but fortunately was arrested without harming anyone.”

Or the cases in India where, over a period of two months, over 20 people were lynched by mobs due to false rumours being spread over whatsapp that they were child abductors (link). Any reasonable person should be horrified at the thought of taking a human life – shouldn’t they? 

The death penalty is still used in many places, and where I am in the UK I have seen people argue in real life that it should be brought back specifically because we should be allowed to murder these groups of offenders. This post (link) explains well why we shouldn’t accept the rhetoric that any group deserves death.

The death penalty is wrong. Advocating for murder is wrong, whether it comes from the right or the left. We can’t, as leftists, claim to be fighting for a better and more equal world if we can’t accept the most basic principle that human life should be valued. We should not be allowing this kind of language to take hold in our communities, because it has real consequences. 

It truly shocks me how often people will claim to be anti-war/anti-execution or will say that murder is wrong, but then they’ll go and say that the people they disagree with or hate should die. Like don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should go out and welcome these people into our communities with open arms indiscriminately, but if you claim to be morally against murder then that has GOT to apply always, even when it comes to people you despise. The second we start making exceptions for our own benefit is the second we throw any semblance of socialist values out the window. This may seem like I’m being dramatic, but once someone starts finding loopholes in something as basic as  ‘killing people is wrong’ then you should get pretty damn scared, because that sort of rhetoric can just turn into a slippery slope towards state-sanctioned murder.

If you believe that people deserve to live, that the death penalty is unjust, then your language and politics should reflect that. As shown above with the Pizzagate case, even jokes about murder have the potential to be taken seriously and be acted upon. We cannot allow what is essentially fascist language and fascist solutions into our political commentary. Because how can you oppose these beliefs and ideas when they come from governing bodies, but make exceptions for yourself and your friends? If you’re morally opposed to something then making exceptions is disingenuous, even dangerous. 

I’ll be real here, 90% of the time I see this coming from young lefty westerners who have literally no experience of living under governments who actually do this. And for clarification, I do of course say that as one of those westerners! But I was also raised by a mother who was part of the resistance against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in the 1970s (link). She had to go into hiding while her friends were being murdered around her, and she came out of that period (and out of the communist party) with an unshakeable hatred of state-sanctioned murder and a great deal of pride in the nonviolent people power revolution that eventually ousted Marcos. I’m not going to even try and get into the argument of whether violence in retaliation against oppression is right or wrong, or whether it’s comparable to the violence enacted by oppressors (as Donald Trump would claim). Why try to find reasons why we should be allowed to enact murder, when we could be devoting ourselves to nonviolent solutions and retaining our commitment to humanitarianism?

For that matter, take the current President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte - his ‘drug war’ has lead to the deaths of 5,176 people officially (i.e. at the hands of the police) while thousands more have been killed unofficially and extrajudicially (which Duterte has actively and explicitly encouraged the public to do). Currently, the number of deaths is estimated to be between 12,000 and 20,000 (link). And this is all because Duterte stirred up public hatred of drug addicts and dealers, using the public’s willingness to dehumanise offenders of certain crimes. He utilised the kind of language we’re talking about to normalise murder - ‘If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself’ is a direct quote (link). Whether these people were killed by the public or killed by police off the record is irrelevant - the continued political support for him and his policies demonstrates that it is entirely possible to convince a large part of the population to see death as a reasonable resolution, if you first make them believe that those people deserve to die. And before anyone asks the question - no, capital punishment is not legal in the Philippines. And yet.

On the most basic level - if you follow this kind of rhetoric, how do you ever expect to create change? Regardless of whether you claim to be joking or saying things out of frustration, you’re still allowing these ideas into your language. And when you post it online where others can easily see it, you’re helping normalise it to lots of impressionable people. In order to make any meaningful change we must be more willing to discuss social and political issues in a way that eschews violent language, both for ourselves and for society at large.

the other day on okcupid, I saw someone’s profile. we were a 98% match, so I clicked. they seemed decent, so I clicked on the questions we disagreed on, and on ‘if every adult in my country owned a gun, would I feel more or less safe?’ they’d put unsure, and written something in the comments about a ‘people’s militia’. I messaged them, and after a bit of back and forth, I asked them flat out if they would be willing to kill for the revolution. They said yes. I blocked them. 

I really don’t know how we’ve gotten to a point in online discourse where it’s become a #hottake to say that Killing People Is Wrong. There are posts on here with thousands of notes about how we should kill all pedophiles/rapists/abusers, and while I understand the need to condemn these people in the strongest terms and make it clear that they have no place in our community, advocating for the killing of people is and always will be wrong. 

Even if you call it ‘clear hyperbole’ - that you don’t actually mean xyz should be killed - how do you know that the thousands of people in the notes understand that? There are clear parallels between this and what the alt-right does. They draw people in with irony and hyperbole, ready to jump up and say it’s all a joke when called on it - but at the end of the day, they’ve managed to normalise and spread their ideas without anyone noticing. 

There have been many cases of people actually murdering those they believe to have committed crimes against children. “Ironic, playful content can have effects in real life.” (link) Such was the case of the man who “turned up at Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington DC with a gun after imbibing too deeply of the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The theory was ginned up by forum trolls and amplified by fringe rightwing media. It asserted, on the basis of some of John Podesta’s leaked emails, that the restaurant was the hub of an elite pedophile ring. Last December, [he] drove to Washington from North Carolina with three firearms. When he arrived, he texted a friend: ‘Raiding a pedo ring, possible sacrificing the lives of a few for the lives of many.’ He fired shots inside the restaurant, but fortunately was arrested without harming anyone.”

Or the cases in India where, over a period of two months, over 20 people were lynched by mobs due to false rumours being spread over whatsapp that they were child abductors (link). Any reasonable person should be horrified at the thought of taking a human life – shouldn’t they? 

The death penalty is still used in many places, and where I am in the UK I have seen people argue in real life that it should be brought back specifically because we should be allowed to murder these groups of offenders. This post (link) explains well why we shouldn’t accept the rhetoric that any group deserves death.

The death penalty is wrong. Advocating for murder is wrong, whether it comes from the right or the left. We can’t, as leftists, claim to be fighting for a better and more equal world if we can’t accept the most basic principle that human life should be valued. We should not be allowing this kind of language to take hold in our communities, because it has real consequences. 

Japanese Artist Depicts The Typical Life Of His Pet Hamster, And The Result Is Adorable

“Talk,” Hozier // Orpheus Mourning the Death of Eurydice, Ary Scheffer (1814) // Orphée aux enfers, Louis Jacquesson de la Chevreuse (1865) // Orphée et Eurydice, Michel Martin Drolling (1820)

hey guys!

as most of you know, i’m doing my postgrad in clinical psychology rn. not only is the workload intense, the textbook-load is almost impossible. obviously, being a child of technology, most of my required reading is in soft copies, but there are a few seminal textbooks (such as the synopsis of psychiatry and the dsm-5) that i need to have hard copies of for my course. as you all know, textbooks are hella expensive, and these psychiatry nerds aren’t playing around with their prices (the dsm alone is $118.43 on amazon without international shipping & customs). 

i’d really appreciate it if you could donate even a tiny amount so that i can save up and buy these (we aren’t allowed to hold any employment during our course because of its intense nature). i’ve used my old ko-fi profile for simplicity’s sake.

thank u sm 🥰

If anyone has a spare couple o dolla pls consider 💘💘

Lorde/Elle Magazine, 2014.

my favorite thing is when you pick up an animal and you look them in the eyes and you can tell nothings going on behind them. you look at them and theres just elevator music. stupid animals really are like the fucking best, the lights are on but no one is home

that also happens when u pick me up and look into my eyes

I don’t know when I’m gonna see you again.

u cant trust people who step on flowers

Mirrored Installations by Sarah Meyohas Create Infinite Tunnels Strewn With Dangling Flowers

halsey // 100 letters

Guillaume Seignac - L’Abandon (1924)

When in doubt, go to the library!