Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

++ TikTok may be banned in the U.S. It's topic that has long been ongoing for a while, and although I never used it myself and grew to be annoyed and detested the way misinformation/disinformation and dangerous rhetoric was spread especially among incredibly impressionable users (which isn't unique as most social media features this to some degree), the potential decision to ban the app is very bad. The entire battle over the app has largely been about power and control more than anything else, never mind the racism/sinophobia reasons that were given. So no matter how one feels about the site itself, censorship is always bad because there are always ulterior motives for doing so.

Interestingly, the Chinese app Xiaohongshu (XHS), or RedNote, is currently welcoming U.S. TikTok refugees. I don't know much about the app (I only know of Douyin, the OG TikTok exclusive to China, and Weibo), but it's hilarious that this loophole is happening mainly as a "fuck you" the the U.S. government. I just hope people who migrate there, even if temporarily, will behave themselves.....

++ A recent publication came out about Neil Gaiman, which delves deeper into what the victims went through in their own words (another alternate link). MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: it's long and extremely graphic and upsetting, even the few excerpts that I read from it were too much.

I have to say, as horrific as the whole thing is, I am glad that it's getting more attention. I remember when all of this started coming to light last year during the summer and it didn't gain as much traction as it should have. Much of that was due to the reports mainly coming from a questionable podcast where the victims were being interviewed, so there was some initial debate on the legitimacy of where the reports were coming from, even though in hindsight this probably was the only outlet for the victims to come forward in any capacity in order to be heard. There were some places reporting on it, linking back to the podcast/transcripts, but otherwise it kind of went silent for a while. Now, thankfully, it seems the tides are turning. The author of this article also wrote the scathing exposé on Joss Whedon, the very one where during the interview he single-handedly ruined his own career by shooting himself in the foot repeatedly. So I do have some hope that this will spark something to be done to get actual proper justice for the victims.

The whole 2023 Hugo Awards fraudulent controversy has truly been something. Reading the exposé and angry responses, including the responses from other authors affected by this such as Xiran Jay Zhao and Neil Gaiman, it's honestly astonishing how much of a shitstorm it is. I, like many others, started paying attention to this when it started circulating around (mainly on Tumblr, for me) about a week ago because authors being disqualified without reason and rumors of intentional censorship seemed rather sus, and I didn't think we'd get an actual answer. But then the whistleblowers leaked the emails of what happened behind-the-scenes of how this shitstorm clusterfuck came to be, and it's just a mess. A nuanced mess, but an incompetent, cowardly, spineless mess regardless.

I don't know much about the Hugos aside from how it's supposedly a prestigious award, and the only thing I have ever paid attention to over the years regarding it was when Archive Of Our Own won a Hugo in 2019 and the whole Puppygate ("Sad Puppies"/"Rapid Puppies") block-voting controversy. Although based on the latter and this recent scandal, it makes me wonder how much prestige the Hugo Awards hold anymore, because unless they do some serious reconsidering of how they handle and run these events it doesn't look good for their overall reputation.

Alaska State Rep. Alan Dick says women should get written permission slips from their impregnators if they want to have an abortion

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett rationalizes ultrasound bill by saying: "I'm not making anybody watch, okay, because you just have to close your eyes."

Idaho lawmaker, Chuck Winder, suggests that women use rape as an excuse for getting abortions

In Georgia, eight women state senators walk out of the Senate chambers, protesting the passing of two bills that would limit access to abortion and contraceptives

Utah Senate passed bill for women seeking abortion to wait 72-hours

Georgia senate panel approves "fetal pain" anti-abortion bill

Wisconsin to ban some abortion coverage and altering sex education by only teaching abstinence as the preferred method of birth control

Tennessee abortion bill would publicize names of the doctors who performed abortions, along with identifying the patients

Texas Sen. Wendy Davis' office was firebombed due to her outspoken support for Planned Parenthood

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These are just some of recent issues concerning the attack on women's rights that have been happening over the last several weeks, and this isn't even the tip of the iceberg of this fight women are going through here in the States. What's deeply disturbing is how women's rights are continually being fought over in this day and age, and how anyone can think it's morally okay to deny basic human rights from someone just because of their gender. Or their sexual orientation or their ethnicity, for that matter. But that is precisely what has been happening, and it's been happening for quite some time now.

And why is this? Because of men.

Old white conservative men are enforcing these laws, making these restrictions and attempting to limit women having control over their own body autonomy. They make it so they can be completely invasive over women's privacy, often forcing, manipulating, humiliating and shaming them in the process and hiding behind religious statements that unfortunately is a huge manipulating tool for these people since they are pandering to those with similar mindsets, and it just spreads like poison. These men feel so threatened by women that they feel the only way to control them is by taking away their rights, and because the unfortunate truth is that us women are still considered a minority, still having to prove ourselves worthy to be in the same ranks and treated with respect by our male counterparts, they are still able to take away our rights and limiting access to things that we need (ex. birth control, Planned Parenthood, sex education, etc.)

The thing is this isn't just about abortion. It's about the right to body autonomy. It's about right of getting proper education and information on something so we can make our own decisions for ourselves. It's about the right to be treated equally, to be allowed to work, to fight, to stay at home, to make our own choices about the lives we want to live without anyone threatening otherwise.

At the end of the day, no matter what your personal opinion is on a certain issue, you have no right to impose on the choice of another. End of story.

01. The E! Online couples poll which has reached levels of complete pettiness from both sides of fandom. It's a competition, so it's to be expected, but the childish behavior being exhibited is making me shake my head. From having both fandoms accuse the other of cheating on the poll to passing insults and even rallying other shippers to join in and vote against their opponent. I mean, come on you guys, it's okay be passionate about your ships and all, but be mature about it.

02. Chris Brown apologists. This one not only pisses me off, it outright nauseates me.

I've seen a mass amount of them on Tumblr, but seeing the comments and posts makes me incredibly angry. A lot of them aren't even being subtle with dismissing the entire domestic abuse aspect, many are excusing what happened by saying that "oh it was over like three years ago" and that everyone still complaining about this should just "move on" and "get over it" -- and just excuses after excuses and it's really sad and disgusting to see people just not get why we are angry and, and it makes me wonder why the hell they aren't angry themselves. This post details precisely why people should be angry and upset about all of this and why trying to defend Chris Brown adds more to our already problematically sexist society we live in. In fact, someone else pointed out that Kanye West got more outrage for stealing the microphone from Taylor Swift than Chris Brown got for hitting his girlfriend. How the fuck is this even justifiable? It's all backwards and there are people who just don't see that, and that? Above all, is fucking terrifying to me.

I will say this once: if you are defending or making excuses for Chris Brown in any way ("but we don't know what really happened that night", "even abusers deserve second chances", "but Rihanna could have done something to set him off!" -- and yes, people have been saying this kind of shit) then you need to fucking leave. That is a despicable and dangerous mindset to have, and I do not have the tolerance in dealing with it.

MegaUpload has been shut down.

I shouldn't be surprised considering the threats that have been happening lately, along with the convenient timing these people have with the upcoming decision of the SOPA bill tomorrow. I will however admit to be shocked and baffled at them shutting down the biggest file-sharing site on the Internet, seeing as how many people thought it would be impossible. Of course that is was before they realized they could shut down the entire site completely instead of targeting every individual person as they do with peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

This kind of changes things, but it also doesn't change anything at the same time.

They tried this before, not just online sharing sites like Napster and Kazaa but also back in the day with VCRs and cassette tapes, the government will try to find ways of taking piracy, in any form, away. Eliminating the sources. Unfortunately for them, the more you take away, the more the people get creative and find other methods of sharing these things. I think these people tend to forget that times are changing, we live in a digital world now, technology is advancing and there is no way you can censor the Internet like this. This is why the SOPA bill cannot be passed. Apparently the government has been tracking down MU for a while, imagine all your sites being censored and shut down. Our freedoms, or ways of communicating, of sharing things that are otherwise unavailable to us, will cease to exist.