The 18th century equivalents of "Say no to banned books" and "Fuck colonialism" (or, in other words, my favourite Robespierre quotes)

“If republicans REALLY cared about children they—“ stop. Shut up. They don’t. It’s not about protecting children. It never is. It’s about exercising control over their children. Stop humoring their arguments, liberals. You can’t defeat fascism with a witty gotcha, this isn’t a marvel movie.

In other news, this week a French publisher on his way to the London Book Fair was arrested by British counter-terrorist police to be questioned about his participation in protests in France.

A French publisher has been arrested on terror charges in London after being questioned by UK police about participating in anti-government protests in France.

Moret arrived at St Pancras [...] with his colleague Stella Magliani-Belkacem, the editorial director at the Paris-based publishing house, to be confronted by the two officers. [...] He was questioned for six hours and then arrested for alleged obstruction in refusing to disclose the passcodes to his phone and computer. [...] He was transferred to a police station in Islington, north London, where he remained in custody on Tuesday. He was later released on bail.

Éditions la Fabrique is known for publishing radical left authors. Moret also represents the French science fiction novelist Alain Damasio and had arranged more than 40 appointments at the London book fair. [...]

[Quoting publishing house’s press release] “The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as a justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make, and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.” [...] “There’s been an increasingly repressive approach by the French government to the demonstrations, both in terms of police violence, but also in terms of a security clampdown.”

(Guardian link - BBC link) (article in French)

The publishing house (here’s their latest statement in French) and the publisher’s lawyer mention that the British police asked him “Do you support Emmanuel Macron? Did you attend protests against the pension reform?” and he was also asked to name the authors with anti-government views that his employer has published. They add, “Asking the representative of a publishing house, in the framework of counter-terrorism, about the opinions of his authors, is pushing even further the logic of political censorship and repression of dissenting thought. In a context of social protests and authoritarian escalation on the part of the French government, this aspect [of the questioning] is chilling.”

Being an accomplice to thoughtcrime by publishing dissident authors gets you treated like an international terrorist now... The publisher’s lawyer suggests that French authorities asked the UK to help them get their hands on the publisher’s contacts in the radical left sphere. But on the face of it, we’ve got: Exercise your right to protest your government in France -> get arrested by counter-terrorist UK police in London. That’s literally the reason he was given for being greeted by police at the train station...

the only thing i would change about spongebob if i had any influence over it is that i would have included an episode where a whalefall resulted in a temporary pop-up underground restaurant/food van that diverted customers from the krusty krab and spongebob and squidward were sent to investigate. it would probably be banned for being "too creepy" or whatever but i'd make sure to save the lost media tapes for all my whalefall enthusiasts and morbid kids out there.

I think about sjm trying to say this was about rhysand in acomaf. like did she read her own writing?? god it pisses me off so much😭 Feyre hadnt even met rhysand at this point im pretty sure plus the suriel directly implicates that it means tamlin “high lords manor” like goddamn feysanders rlly hunting for scraps to justify their shitty little retcon ship.

"I don't care about shipcourse, I touch grass hurr durr"

But you do realize that antis are part of a far right push towards wider censorship policies in actual real life. Of actual real art. Right? Right??????

You touch grass but do you ever want to touch a piece of non-corporate-approved not cookie cutter white christian media again? You ever read a book that has been banned and think "well jeez it would suck if I lived in a time when I would get arrested for this."

THE TIME IS HERE. THE PUSH IS NOW. ARTISTS OF ALL SORTS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH FANFICTION OR SHIPPING HAVE BEEN SPEAKING OUT AND WARNING YOU ABOUT THIS FOR AGES. IT IS NOT A "CHRONICALLY ONLINE" STANCE TO THINK CENSORSHIP IS BAD AND ACTIVELY DANGEROUS TO EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO CANNOT BUY THEIR WAY OUT OF JAIL. THE NAZIS HAD A WHOLE THING ABOUT "GOOD MORALLY PURE ART" AND "BAD MORALLY DEGENERATE ART" TOO. THEY BURNED RECORDS OF QUEER CLINICS. THEY CENSORED ANY NEWS THAT WASN'T WITH THEIR AGENDA. DOES THAT REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING DOES IT.

kicked out of the Aether Resorts Inn 😔

I love AO3 because it is the only place on the internet where you do not need to worry about your works, or other people's works that you love, being deleted. You also know you can comfortably talk about anything you want. And I can properly tag it so that those likely to be triggered can block it.

For example, on Tumblr, if I wanted to discuss something dark, serious, or of a taboo topic, like say, eating disorders or anything sexual, I used to be able to tag it so that people triggered by those topics don't see it.

Now? If I talk about my experience with eating disorders and attempt to encourage others to recover, all with an educational and honest mindset, if I tag it with any of the common tags to get it seen by those people, I risk my entire blog being deactivated.

I have literally had this happen before. That is how my last blog died.

Now, if I want to make sure I don't see those topics, I can't block the tags because the people talking about them aren't tagging them properly. They don't want to be deactivated, so when they talk about them, it's with no tags or the wrong tags.

The amount of triggering pr0/*na stuff I've seen on my dash lately is ridiculous despite the fact my blocked tags look like this:

And so on.

Or think about an egregious example...wattpad. I don't want your shitty alpha mate erotic self insert bts fanfic. You know what I can do on AO3? Filter literally any of those terms out.

You know what I have to do on wattpad? Scroll past them all because they make up the majority of the top stories in some categories despite wattpad's terms of service. Sometimes, I will start reading a nice fantasy story only to get part way through the second chapter and MC is getting r*ped by a pack of "muscular, dominant werewolves." I would much rather the author mentioned there would be explicit heterosexual sex and rape. I would not read it then.

People also have boundaries in wildly different places. I'm okay with reading a story about lesbians involving consensual nonconsent, you know, bdsm style, where the rules have been worked out in advance and there's a safeword + signal. That's fine, it doesn't bother me at all even if I'm not particularly interested in it. But make it a man r*ping someone physically weaker (regardless of gender) nope! I'm out. Even if it's not for pleasure purposes and is a dark scene which is traumatic for the character and is important for whatever psychological themes of the work. Aspects like that can be included in writing legitimately, especially in works on the more psychological side. But I do not want to see those particular topics, so I filter them out. No problem.

My favorite fic author of all time writes a ton of disturbing stuff in the death note fandom, which, given the tone of canon, is a ripe canvas to work from. Half of the good psychological death note fics would be banned within the first couple of months, I'm sure. Even darker/more intense works like psycho-pass? It had a r*pe scene in the very first episode. It was definitely not meant to be gratifying to the viewer. It is meant to be horrifying. Any fics that deal with any of the topics canon deals with? Control, manipulation, gore and physical violences spanning the range which occurs in the real world and how you deal with them? How you deal with the people who commit them? There is a vast amount of ugliness canon portrays that is meant to make the viewer uncomfortable. If it makes you uncomfortable, good, you are a normal person. If you're not up for these topics, filter them out.

Those of us who want to see even the ugly sides of human experience discussed in writing can read them in deeply unsettled peace and you can read a different fic.

Banning these topics from being discussed entirely? You make the whole of literature, of what we are allowed to discuss publicly, more shallow. The depths are banned. You can't discuss anything about them. Not from the cathartic voice of an abuse survivor or the philosophical curiosity of someone who wishes to understand people, even bad people.

In short, it's dumb, and completely missing the point of an ARCHIVE.

Keeping people illiterate and ignorant makes book banning and censorship unnecessary.

The season might be over, but that doesn't mean I can't still enjoy some wintersport related media ❄️📚

fuck around

(sources: 1 2 3)

and find out

(sources: 1 2 3)

far-right conservative: queer spaces are full of predators, groomers, pedophiles who perpetrate sexual abuse on children or are looking to. this drivel is totally not a moral panic fuelled by deep-seated transphobia and homophobia, I just know real abuse is happening every which way though there's no such evidence! we need to censor bad literature - queer weirdo shit that makes me uncomfortable - and limit all interactions between queer adults and minors, as they are always suspicious. it's to protect the children!

young fandom LGBTQ+ convinced they're a progressive leftist: queer spaces are full of predators, groomers, pedophiles who perpetrate sexual abuse on children or are looking to. I'm [insert LGBT label here] and totally not queerphobic, it's just that fandom is unusually full of degenerate freaks wanting to perpetrate real crimes, though there's no such evidence! we need to censor bad literature - queer weirdo shit that makes me uncomfortable - and limit all interactions between queer adults and minors, as they are always suspicious. it's to protect the children!

Americans who care about libraries, Missouri needs your help. Please.

From the post:

"Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office has submitted a proposed rule that would establish a certification requirement for libraries receiving state funds and institute measures to protect minors from non-age-appropriate materials.  

As stated in the proposal, libraries would adopt written policies determining what material is age-appropriate. As well, state funds could not be used to purchase or acquire inappropriate materials in any form that appeal to the prurient interest of a minor..."

In short, this is bullshit. The Missouri Library Association has a Twitter thread about why over here. They also have a statement here. Text of the rule is here.

The short version, however is:

There is no such thing as "inappropriate materials...that appeal the the prurient interest of a minor." The word for that is pornography. It is illegal to distribute pornography to people under the age of 18 anywhere in the United States. Just admit that you want to restrict access to materials with LGBTQIA+ characters and which deal with medically-based sexual health.

Librarians already do this. We are literally fucking trained to do this. We take courses on this. We give training sessions on it. We publish and read material on how to be better at it. We have been doing it for as long as there have been libraries. Do you want your kid to avoid sex or romance entirely? We can find materials without those things. Do you want your kid who is recovering from an eating disorder to not have to be triggered by fatphobia in the books they enjoy? We can find stuff without that. Do you want no violence, or gore, or magic, or mental health issues, or themes of parental death in the books your children read? BECAUSE WE CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT.

This rule will do nothing to protect children. It was made for sex-obsessed busybodies to tell themselves that they're "good people" for restricting what everyone else gets to read.

Beginning November 15, 2022, the rule will be published in the Missouri Register, and there will be a chance to comment on it. Please, make your opposition known. Or, you can email the Secretary of State's office at [email protected], with "Proposed Rule 15 CST 30-200.015" in the subject line.

He had it coming, your honor.

i finished radio silence.

A Florida Republican thinks the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law doesn’t go far enough and wants to expand it.

The state’s anti-LGBTQ+ “Parental Rights in Education Law,” which was signed into law last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), bans the state’s schools from teaching about LGBTQ+ history and issues in grades K­­–3 and restricts the teaching of those issues “in a manner that is not age-appropriate” up to grade 12.

Earlier this week, state Rep. Adam Anderson (R) filed House Bill 1223, which would expand the law to ban “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in pre-K through the eighth grade. It would also expand the law to apply to private and charter schools as well as public schools, and requires all public schools to acknowledge that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”

The bill would also require teachers to call students by pronouns that align with the sex they were assigned at birth.

In a statement, Anderson said that the bill “promotes parental rights, transparency, and state standards in Florida schools. It requires that lessons for Florida’s students are age-appropriate, focused on education, and free from sexualization and indoctrination.”

Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer responded to the bill in a statement on Tuesday.

“Don’t Say LGBTQ policies have already resulted in sweeping censorship, book banning, rainbow Safe Space stickers being peeled from classroom windows, districts refusing to recognize LGBTQ History Month, and LGBTQ families preparing to leave the state altogether,” Maurer said. “This legislation is about a fake moral panic, cooked up by Governor DeSantis to demonize LGBTQ people for his own political career.”

“Governor DeSantis and the lawmakers following him are hellbent on policing language, curriculum, and culture,” Maurer continued. “Free states don’t ban books or people.”

“The DeSantis regime isn’t satisfied with a hostile takeover of traditional public schools,” he said of the bill’s expansion to include private and charter schools. “They envision a future where LGBTQ families have no school choice to find dignity or respect.”

It’s widely assumed that Gov. DeSantis will run for President on his right-wing education platform. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said that Florida’s law doesn’t go far enough and Donald Trump suggested changing federal law to punish any teachers that discuss trans identity in the classroom.

Numerous medical and mental health studies and associations have found hat affirming the gender identities of trans youth reduces their mental anguish and suicidality.