Representation Matters

I saw this chart and I thought it might help people navigate what activities they felt safe to do or not go.

your first and most pressing concern should be for the safety of black people. it should be for justice. it should be in making this not just a moment but a reshaping of cultural bias.

this is not a fun little game for you to trot around flipping off cops and making light of a situation you were never effected by. it is not your chance to have a little bit of adventure in the middle of a quarantine. i am speaking as an author and i am telling you to stop fucking making this about katniss or harry potter or whatever - you can be shaped by media, sure, but this is not and has never been about you roleplaying your favorite action heroes. this is not another “disaster of 2020″. this is not a quirky instagram post, it’s not a chance for you to meet up with your friends, it’s not a tactic to get your tiktok trending.

this is about racial injustice. this is about the entire system that is built on that injustice and grows fat on that injustice. don’t get distracted. the police force is not the only systemically racist organization.

black lives matter. and we do not stop until every organization recognizes that and actually acts on it.

BILL NYE can’t stress the importance of Climate Change enough

This whole “Salazar Slytherin wasn’t REALLY  a bigot” post going around is like…very reaching, but okay, if you really want to defend the dude so badly. The dude who put a giant-ass killing snake in a school. which he definitely did, Voldemort would not have been able to raise a Basilisk in a few years. 

Goldilocks & the 3 bears joke.

Guys if you get a similar message PLEASE DONT CLICK THE LINK

It’ll make your device vulnerable to being hacked

Please rt to make people aware ‘exposingthelosers’ does not exist

another important thing about solidarity within queer communities is that so many of us will identify with different labels (especially when we are young/still figuring out that we aren’t straight & cis to begin with) before figuring out how we identify longterm. E.g. gay people who start out identifying as bi, trans men who initially identify as butch lesbians, asexuals who at first identify as bisexual (because hey, that’s technically being equally attracted to multiple genders), and so on. In fact, most queer people, at one time or another, identified as cishet. So we of all people should be aware that figuring out our identities takes time, and is a winding path. 

And this is why solidarity in our communities is so important. And why gatekeeping is so dangerous. Because not only is each part of our community a longterm home, sanctuary, and support system for people of a certain identity, we also provide a path and an unofficial Welcoming Committee to new members of the wider LGBTQA+ community (especially young queer people, for whom a supportive welcoming is so important). And in turn, many of the people who find their way to us will be coming from a different part of the rainbow path. This is also why bigotry is so so damaging when it comes from within our communities, and why we each of us have a responsibility to examine our prejudices and acknowledge that being queer doesn’t automatically give us a pass–we are just as capable of bigotry as anyone on the outside, and in a unique position to do harm from within. Fight transphobia, fight aphobia, fight biphobia, fight racism and ableism and discrimination wherever you see it in our communities. And more than that, celebrate ALL the colors on our flags, and all of the diverse communities they represent. Solidarity makes us so much more powerful, as a community and as individuals. So I’d like to start by saying:

Welcome, everyone. It’s good to have you here.

the GM: the field is populated with ornamental flamingos.

the monk: i don’t know if my character’s ever seen a flamingo before.

the GM: roll to know what a flamingo is!

the monk: *gets a nat 1*

the monk:

[GIF ID: An extremely muscular, shirtless person does a standing windmill on a soccer field filled with several dozen plastic flamingos. Then, they kick every single flamingo out of frame in a frenetic rage, then rage-run offscreen. End ID.]

Watch: As Blythe’s poem ends, it’s clear what we must do in the face of rape culture and “pocket feminism.”