Hey Sam! Since it's currently AO3 donation time, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on it? I'm asking because you've written RPF and it's one of many "anti-AO3/anti-AO3 donations" people's favourite things to bring up when they're complaining about AO3 getting so many donations that it continuously obtains an excess of its donation goal whenever donation time rolls around? (Wow, how many times can I say "donation" in an ask?) Sorry if this question bothers you! I don't mean to offend or annoy.

Hey anon! Sorry it took a while to get to this, I don't even know if the drive is still going on, but the question came in while I was traveling and I didn't really have the time for stuff that wasn't travel-related. In any case, let's dig in! (I am not offended, no worries.)

So really there are two issues here and as much as some people who are critical of AO3 want to conflate them, they are different. While some criticism of AO3 may be valid, rhetoric against AO3 tends to misinterpret both in separate ways.

First there's the issue of what AO3 hosts -- RPF, yes, but more broadly, varied content that some people find distasteful or think should be illegal, which is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the archive and more broadly a dangerous attitude towards the concept of freedom of expression.

Second, there's the issue of AO3 generally outpacing its fundraising goals while not allowing monetization, which is a misunderstanding of the legal status of AO3 and to an extent a misunderstanding of philanthropy as a whole.

The longer I watch debates about content go on, the more I come to the conclusion that I was fortunate to have a teacher who really wanted to instill in us an understanding of free speech not as a policy but as an ongoing dialogue. It's not only that freedom of expression "protects you from the government, not the Justin" as the meme goes, but also that freedom of expression is not a static thing. It's an ongoing process of identifying what we find harmful in society and what we want to do about it.

Should the freedom to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater be restricted? Should the freedom to yell slurs at drag performers? Should the freedom to teach prepubescent kids about gender, sexuality, and/or safe sex? Should the freedom to wear a leather puppy hood at Pride? Who gets to say, and why?

I was nine when my teacher did a unit on freedom of speech and the intersection of "harm prevention" and "censorship", which is (and should be) a discussion, not a set of ironclad rules. This ambiguity has thus been with me for over thirty years, and I'm comfortable with the ambiguity, with the process; I'm not sure a lot of people critical of AO3's content truly are. Perhaps some can't be, especially those affected by hate speech, but RPF is not hate speech. It's just fiction. Or is fiction "just fiction"? This is a question society as a whole is grappling with, although fandom seems to be a little out ahead of society in terms of how explicitly we discuss it.

The idea that prose can incite violence or cause harm is both valid to examine (witness the rise of fascism on the radio in the 20s, on Facebook and Twitter in the past ten years; they're very similar processes) and a very slippery slope. Because again: who decides what harm is, and what causes it, and what we do about it? Our values align us with certain beliefs, but those are only our values, not universal truths. So AO3 is part of the ongoing question of harm and benefit both to society and individuals.

AO3 itself, however, has a fairly defined policy that it is not meant to police content; it is an archive, not a bookstore or a school board. AO3 refines its TOS and policies as necessary, but the goal is always open access and as much freedom of expression as possible, and if that's uncomfortable for some people then that's a discussion we have to have; ignoring it won't make it go away. But it has to be a discussion, it can't be a unilateral change to the archive's TOS or a series of snaps and clapbacks, and I don't see a lot of people ready to move beyond flinging insults. Perhaps because they were taught a much more binary view of freedom of expression than I was.

So, self-evidently, I support AO3 and I don't have a problem with RPF. Whether other people do is something we're going to have to get to grips with, and that's likely to be a process that is still going on when most of us are dust. I'd rather have a century of ambiguity than a wrong answer tomorrow, anyway.

But whether AO3 hosts RPF is truly a separate issue from its donation drives, because it's a criticism some people level at the site which exists whether it's fundraising or not. So people can criticize AO3's open policy and they can give it as a reason not to support the site, but it's just one aspect of the archive and the fundraising as a whole should be examined separately.

I think AO3's fundraisers are deeply misunderstood (sometimes on purpose) because even people who are anticapitalist get a little crazy when money gets involved, and this is, to fandom, a lot of money -- a few hundred thousand, reliably, every fundraiser. To me, a fundraiser that pulls in three hundred grand is almost quaint; my current nonprofit pulls in better than ten million a year and my previous employer had an endowment of several billion dollars. At my old job I didn't even bother researching people who couldn't give us a hundred grand.

On the other hand, AO3 is an extreme and astounding outlier in the nonprofit world, because basically it's the only one of its kind to work the way it does. It is entirely volunteer-run on the operational side (ie: tag wranglers, coders, lawyers, etc) and has no fundraising staff (gift officers, researchers, outreach officers) as far as I'm aware. To pull in three hundred grand from individual one-time donations, without any paid staff and without even a volunteer fundraising officer? That's insane. That doesn't happen. Except at AO3.

What people misunderstand, however, is the basic status of a nonprofit, which is a legal status, not simply a social one. (I'm adding in some corrections here since it gets complicated and the terminology can be important!) The Organization for Transformative Works, the parent of AO3, is a nonprofit, which indicates how it was incorporated as an organization; additionally it is registered federally as tax-exempt, which carries certain perks, like not paying sales tax, and certain duties, like making their financials transparent to a certain extent. (Religious nonprofits are exempt from the transparency requirement.) If you're interested in more about nonprofits and tax-exempt status a reader dropped a great article here.

Nonprofits, unlike for-profit companies, cannot pay a share of their income to stakeholders. Nonprofits don't have financial stakeholders, only donors. They can have employees and pay them a salary -- that's me, for example -- but if a nonprofit pulls in $10M in donations, my salary is paid from that, I don't get a percentage and nobody else does either. That's what it means to be a nonprofit -- the money above operational costs goes back into the organization. The donations we (and AO3) receive must be plowed under and used for outreach, server maintenance, further fundraising, services expansion, et cetera. You can see this in the 990 forms on Guidestar or ProPublica, or in their more accessible breakdowns on Charity Navigator. Nonprofits that do not put the majority of their income towards service provision tend to get audited and lose their nonprofit status. So nobody's getting paid from all that money, and the overage that isn't spent goes into what is basically a savings account in the name of the nonprofit. (I'm vastly simplifying but that's the gist.) Using that money for personal purposes is illegal. It's called "private inurement" and there's a good article here about it. The money belongs to the OTW as a concept, not to anyone in or of the OTW.

So the biggest misunderstanding that I see in people who are mad at AO3 fundraisers is that "they" are getting all this money (who "they" are is never clearly stated but I'm pretty sure people think @astolat has a special wifi router that runs on burning hundred dollar bills) while "we" can't monetize our fanfic. But "they" get nothing -- nobody even earns a salary from AO3 -- and you can easily prove that by looking at the 990 forms they file with the government, which are required to be made public. You can see the most recently available 990, from 2020, here at Guidestar. Page seven will show you the "highest compensated" employees, all of whom are earning zero dollars or nonmonetary perks (that's the three columns on the right).

Either AO3 is entirely volunteer-run or someone's Doing A Real Fraud. The money the OTW spends is documented (that's page 10 and 11 primarily) and while they may pay for, say, the travel and lodging expenses of a lawyer going to DC to defend a freedom-of-expression case, they don't pay the lawyer for their time, or give them a cut of the income.

Despite what you've read, the reason "we" can't monetize our fanfics on AO3 has nothing to do with the site being the product of volunteer handiwork or AO3 having it in their terms of service or it being considered gauche by some to do so; it's because

IT'S ILLEGAL.

I cannot say this loudly enough: It is against the law for a nonprofit to be used by its staff, volunteers, or beneficiaries to earn direct profit from the services provided by the nonprofit.

You can be paid to work at one, but you cannot side-hustle by selling your handmade friendship bracelets for personal gain on the nonprofit's website. If the nonprofit knowingly allows monetization of its services, it can lose nonprofit status, be fined, be hit with back taxes, and a lot of other unpleasant bullshit can go down, including prosecution of those involved for fraud. If you put a ko-fi link on your fanfic, you are breaking the law, and if AO3 allows it, they are too.

Okay, that was a sidebar, but in some ways not, because it gets to the heart of the real complaints about AO3 fundraising, which is that people in fandom are sick or unhoused or in some form of need and other people in fandom are giving to AO3, a fan site that is financially stable, instead of giving to peoples' gofundmes or dropping money in their Ko-Fi or Paypal. And while it is a legitimate grievance that there are people who are in such desperate need while we live in an era of unprecedented abundance, that's not AO3's fault. AO3 doesn't solicit actively, there's no unasked-for mailings or calls from a gift officer. They just put a banner up on their website, and people give. (Again, this is incredibly outlier behavior in the nonprofit world, I'd do a case study on it but the conclusion would just be "shit's real, yo.") You might as well be mad that people give to their local food bank instead of someone's ko-fi.

You cannot lay at AO3's feet the fact that people want to give to AO3 instead of to your fundraiser. That's a choice individuals have made, and while you can engage with them in terms of why they made the philanthropic choices they did, to blame an organization they supported rather than the person who made the choice to give is not only incorrect but futile, and unlikely to win anyone over to supporting you. We know from research that guilt is not a tremendous motivator of philanthropy.

It is also not necessarily a binary choice; just because AO3 gets a hundred grand in $5 donations doesn't mean most of the people giving don't also give $5 elsewhere. I support the OTW on occasion, and I also fundraise for UNICEF and the Chicago Parks Foundation and BAGLY and others, in addition to giving monthly to several nonprofits that I have longterm relationships with -- my alma mater, the animal rescue where I got the Cryptids, my shul. And I give, occasionally and anonymously, to fundraisers that pass through Radio Free Monday, which are mainly individuals in need, because I was once in need and now I pay it forward. These are the choices I have made. Nobody twisted my arm. I respond poorly to someone making the attempt to do so by attacking places I've given.

I think the upshot is, after all of this that I've written, that we cannot begin to come to grips with questions of institutional inequality in philanthropy, or freedom of expression and censorship, until people actually understand what's going on, and too few do. So all I can do is try and explain, and hopefully create a forum for people to learn and grow when it comes to charitable giving.

Archive Of Our Own and the Organization for Transformative Works are products of our community and as that community changes, we will necessarily continue to re-evaluate what aspects of it mean and how AO3/OTW express the community sentiment. I hope that the ongoing discussion of support for AO3 also leads to people learning more about their philanthropic options. But criticizing AO3 for fundraising by attacking it for fulfilling one of its stated purposes is silly, and attempting to guilt people into giving in the ways one thinks they should give rather than how they do give is just going to make one extremely unlikable.

As members of this community, we have to be a part of the push and pull, but it's difficult to do that competently in ignorance. So, I do my best to be knowledgeable and to educate my readers, and I hope others will do the same.

Why I'm leaving Aethy and you probably should too

So, I already made a post about the fact Aethy has suddenly banned pro para and pro radqueer people. (Not even just people who are paraphiles or radqueers, just anyone who voices any support for them at all.) Which you can read about here

But the staff at Aethy has also started showing signs of being vindictive and demeaning. My account was limited the first time (after I made a post on there complaining about aethy which they weren't tagged in nor did I tag anything on it) for having "pro para" in my bio. I believe this was retaliation for my post complaining. They commented this on my post. Keep in mind that they weren't tagged nor was anything tagged. This is the staff who found my post and decided to argue with me on it.

Either way, I removed that from my bio and my account was no longer limited.

However, today, my account was limited again. This time, they offered no content that was against TOS nor an actual rule I had broken. The left features the first limitation I received when my account was actually breaking TOS, the second is the one I received after they were upset with me.

Your stance on radqueers or paras aside, I don't appreciate a site where the staff is lashing at or swearing at its users. This site is supposed to be for adults, yet it seems to be run by children. I also find it very uncomfortable that a site that markets themselves as an anti censorship site is telling users to shut up because nobody wants to hear their takes.

Equiliberty Transphobia and Censorship - Jocelyn and company react to my departure

Thrilling followup of Jocelyn/Moe/Crownhill EC/cathcc/cath-creative-corner/bambisimmer responding to the farewell message I had to post as a screenshot because she blocked the word 'transphobe' from the server to keep people from talking about her revolting behavior and bigotry.

Red mark-out indicates her complicit (at BEST) mods - people who are morally okay with working along someone who believes pronouns are "political", loudly argues that there are only two genders, misgenders people (even calling one trans person it), comes onto posts about respectfully playing Native American characters complaining about cultural sensitivity, and more!

You'll notice Jocelyn's typical victim complex behavior here and emotional immaturity - she is being attacked, she is being bullied, not the transgender people she's treating like dogshit.

Jocelyn, I want you to know that there's not a damn thing that's going to deliver you from the community's wrath on this one.

There's nowhere you can run to get away from your choices. You can change your url or the name of the server or delete channels over and over again as many times as you want, but this community has a long-ass memory. Make a new account! Change your username again! We're going to find you. There are eyes on you in that server. There are eyes on you frankly most places you post. I want you to know it's not safe to vomit up your hateful "opinions" anywhere on god's green earth without it ending up in another public post, and honestly, you're going to be exceptionally lucky if youtube's simmers don't pick up on this one for views from the controversy. You had an okayish rep as a creator back in TS3's equine community and you, nobody but you, threw that all away why? To hurt other people who did nothing to you.

Most of us are LGBT+ in some way and those who aren't are almost always allies, not fellow bigots.

Without further ado! Here's my post in the 2 minutes before Jocelyn deleted it (after saying to me specifically 10-15mins prior she was going to stop deleting posts she just didn't agree with).

Sooo much here.

"when people aren't older" This is deranged behavior from someone who's allegedly not a minor.

"If it causes drama, hurts someone or the like it should go to be honest." I guess the exception is if it hurts trans people, right, Mod?

"I didn't call the person an it on purpose" 1) oops accidentally fell on my keyboard, hit the I and T keys in the correct order followed by space, then finished my sentence & 2) the way she avoids saying "them" EVEN NOW by saying "the person" instead lmfao

"What I'm upset about is people painting me bad, when I'm not" Girl you are a bad person. You are not kind to people who are already oppressed. You're immature, incapable of leadership at 30something years old, desperately clinging to a failing server which you imploded with YOUR OWN hateful diatribes against people who did NOTHING to you, trying to jealously hoard members and talking about "poaching". You had to create an entire server because you were not welcome elsewhere simply because of your personality before you even started spewing hate speech!!!! Honestly when I joined the discord I kind of anticipated a fall of Rome scenario given who was at the helm, just tried to not interact with her, etc, but nah man. Nah.

"and try ruining my rep" You already ruined it.

But my favorite of all, from the mouth of the bully herself, is this:

It's not okay to post, I'm being attacked. Can't you see how wrong that is?

I've been playing Fates again (thanks gay fates mod ily kiss kiss) and after (re)reading through counter-critiques of its story and generally thinking about it again I'm kinda left with the following thoughts and wanted to share as you're our resident Fates Was Good, Actually blogger.

a) so much of Fates critique falls into cinemasins-level "this isn't explicitly stated therefore BAD" territory (or otherwise stuff that shouldn't be, and often isn't, a problem in other games in the series)

b) we wouldn't need to bring up the Japanese script in contrast with the localization in the first place if the fandom hadn't completely poisoned the well in regards to talking about Fates' story. I had no idea about any of the localization changes my first play-through and I still thought Fates' plot was fine. Good, even!

The fatescourse is what made me leave the fandom around the time 3H came out, and every time I take a peek back in the subreddit or other fandom spaces it still seems to be just as much of a toxic cesspool as ever. Which sucks because I want to talk about Blorbo from my Emblems again, but I really don't want to have to deal with The Discourse & general toxicity

Hope you don't mind me posting this!

I feel you 100% and the sentiments are very appreciated, thanks!

For your first point, yeah, that's what it feels like. Saying it's CinemaSins-esque feels like a low blow, but it honestly does remind me of those videos. And they aren't meant to be actual critique! They're sarcastic entertainment and little else! But so much of Fates criticism is "why doesn't X just do Y? never explained by in-game text, so therefore story bad" or "why isn't Z plot point expanded upon? game never tells me so story bad." It's cheap and shallow, above all else. It's reminiscent of the Blue Curtains literary discourse, in that people only go with what's written explicitly rather than connect the dots from plot point to plot point. You're supposed to connect Azura's pacifying song to Mikoto's pacifying magic to Valla's history of magical development due to being directly blessed by Anankos; same with the crystal ball, water motifs, and future sight, those are all Valla-centered traits. But because the game never says "oh this is because of Valla", people think the place is just a nameless evil nation with no history or unique aspects.

For your second point, god, yes. Soooo many take any localization criticism as either a) alignment with unsavory anti-censorship anti-sjw chuds who are mostly complaining about not getting to boink lolis or b) not worth the time because "it wasn't gonna make a bad story any better anyway" which is such a gutter thing to say because localizations have literally changed things and removed crucial information in the series before Fates. The big examples being stuff with the Black Knight in the Tellius games, the long script removal in Radiant Dawn, and lines relating to Nergal's backstory in FE7 being mistranslated. Awakening had its share of localization discourse and criticism due to characters like Henry being changed, as well.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a little resentful that 3H of all games is when people started giving a shit, cuz now that a "good game with a good story is being affected, it's now worth our time."

Plus this shit is still happening, considering that FEH consistently gets stuff wrong or mistranslated to this day.

why would you ad men to a poll about girls?

I suppose I had better explain this one since I know a lot of people weren't here right since the start.

When I first opened the submissions my policy was to run qualifier polls on characters that I didn't think unequivocally qualified. While I was still operating under this policy, three male-aligned characters (Captain Jack Sparrow, Patrick Bateman, and Miles "Tails" Prowler) were submitted, and I ran qualifiers for them accordingly. After a few days of this, people began to complain, both because of the men and because of a glut of joke submissions, and I started taking my responsibilities as an officiator of this poll more seriously. I started taking more liberties with what characters I disqualified by executive fiat, including enforcing my policy of keeping this a girlboss-aligned tournament. However, the three men that were submitted had been submitted in good faith, and had passed the qualifier poll. I felt it would be a betrayal of their submitters to disqualify them now. So yes, those three men did make it in.

I'll also address the nonbinary characters now. I haven't seen as much outcry over this, but a couple people were confused so I'll clarify - it was always my intention to allow canonically nonbinary characters to enter the poll. This is because I myself, as a plural system in which certain members are nonbinary, do not mind having the girlboss label applied to me. Nonbinary experiences are a vast set of spectrums, and this can include people who use genderless, gender-neutral, or alternative-gender pronouns but still allow themselves to identify with traditionally feminine-aligned labels. It was never my intention to suggest that canonically nonbinary characters such as Chara were women, and I apologize if I failed to make that clear.

One other thing I've seen coming up vis-a-vis Jack Sparrow is the fact that he is played by Johhny Depp. I will say this only once: fuck Johnny Depp. However, Johnny Depp the actor is not Captain Jack Sparrow the character, and being a fan of one is not the same as being a fan of the other. In general, I am against excluding media from this tournament, whenever possible. I have allowed characters from Homestuck and Hazbin Hotel to enter the tournament, despite the problematic history of the creators, because I believe that people should be allowed to engage with media on a basis that does not require them to be constantly aware of its creator, and that censorship of media based on its morality is rarely excusable. The exception to this rule is that I have not allowed Harry Potter characters to be submitted, because the Harry Potter universe is not only laced with problematic elements in itself, but all proceeds from it essentially, at this point, go to fund an antisemitic, racist, transphobic political hate campaign.

Finally, I will once again remind you all that any hate in my notes will get you blocked. You have the right to disagree with others and you most certainly have the right to disagree with me. That does not give you the right to attack and insult others over anything - how they choose their vote, how they run their tournament, how they engage with media, etc. I have seen actual death threats in my notes towards submitters of characters people did not like. I shouldn't have to tell you all that I will not tolerate that, but here we are.

Hello! I'm back for another rant :)

I was still thinking about Mihoyo's tendency to pair characters and play the ambiguity game to make more money and something I've noticed is that people will jump through sooo many hoops to defend the company. ''oh they can't be explicit because of censorship'', ''oh it's China, their culture is different!'' or even ''stupid entitled westerners always complaining about things they don't even try to understand smh 🙄''

Now, while I can agree that censorship and culture should be taken into account when talking about these games, I also feel like it's a bit disingenuous and lowkey patronising to chalk it all up to ''the Chinese are just all like that lol''

Like, why are we so vehemently defending a company that makes millions (if not billions) through ship teasing, as you've put before? Censorship does not change the fact that the development that characters get in these games (especially Genshin) goes out the window every other event or as soon as the main story is finished. And whenever I hear someone talk about censorship, I always think about Mo Dao Zu Shi (granted, the situation was different in its case so we should take it with a grain of salt) where its donghua and drama adaptations where indeed censored (but they were much more explicit than whatever's going on in Hoyoverse), yet the novel (the source material) had many MANY chapters with its two male leads going at it

I admit that I've been feeling a bit salty recently (because I feel like people only care about coding when it comes to the 'great' questions of ''OK but do these two men FUCK? How many times a day do they go at it and who's the woman in this ship??'' Meanwhile nobody ever talks about different dynamics, asexuality and aromanticism are seen as boring, and oh lord does bisexuality seem to be often treated as a trump card to say ''ok but this character is at least 50% gay'') and I also don't know that much about how everything works in China, but idk, I guess my point is that if they wanted to make ships canon, they WOULD (or could) find a way to do so

Anyway, your recent posts and asks also got me thinking and I guess I wanted to show you some support! I've seen your bio and I think it's a really smart move on your part to be clear on what you don't feel comfortable with from the get go. It can definitely be awkward when you have to tell someone that's just really excited to share their thoughts on something they enjoy that you're not interested and you'd rather not talk about this AT ALL. And it really does not help that popular ships tend to attract a lot of unhinged behaviour 😑 It's really refreshing to come across content creators like you, who are very clear in their boundaries and write such thoughtful fics

Once again, I hope you will be left to do your own thing in peace and that you'll keep finding ways and solutions for you to enjoy your favourite works without feeling alienated 💜

(And hopefully one day I will learn how to type short rants 😅)

Haha, short rants don't exist, Anon! It's perfectly okay to type long rants to me, I don't mind. If anything, I relish in them. As someone who rants and complains a lot myself, I welcome it when someone else does it. 😊 (I mean, just look at the length of my reply. I am not any better than you, dear Anon)

Lord, the "Mihoyo can't show explicit gay ships because of the CCP censorship" excuse grates on my nerves, as well. Censorship of homosexuality is definitely a thing in China, and it can sometimes be very horrible, but that's not what's stopping Mihoyo from making certain ships canon. They got way with a lot of lesbian ships in Honkai 3rd (though admittedly they had to tone it down once new laws were implemented, but the fact remains that at some point they were able to be blatant about their ships), and if we're talking actual coding, then Jeht being lesbian-coded is a thing that exists! If it was such a huge deal, I feel like Mihoyo would have either been way more subtle about it or not included these things at all.

It's just my personal opinion, but I'm certain that the reason Mihoyo doesn't make any ship canon is for the sake of making money. They need to sell characters, and the best way to do that is to allow players to enjoy characters the way they want. Assigning a specific sexuality or canon ship will crush the interpretations some players have about a character, and make that character unappealing. It would negatively impact their sales. Keeping things vague and only giving teases of the most popular ships seems to be the ideal marketing tactic for them. It panders to a lot more people this way and keeps most of them happy (however, the fact remains that they ignore a particular demographic of women, though that's a story for another time).

Regarding your reasons why people whip out the "coding" card... YOU ARE SO RIGHT! People only use sexuality coding as a way to "prove" their gay ship is canon and discredit any BG pairing. And they focus on things like one guy being muscular and the other more slender, and then assigning traditionally masculine and feminine traits to them, respectively. I could go on a whole separate rant about this topic, but I'll spare you the wall of text. Feminizing one of the guys in a gay ship is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when it's OOC for the character.

One thing I noticed is that sexuality often gets used as a convenient tool to suit the needs of certain shippers instead of being used for actual diversity.

I can't tell you the amount of times I saw a sexuality tier list where the aromantic and asexual rows were treated as trash bins where people tossed the characters they didn't care about. There's no actual thought put into the sorting, and that's very unfair to actual aro and ace persons.

As for bisexuality... it's such a polarizing topic in fandoms. It's seen as a good thing when you have a canonical BG pairing, because then you can claim one or both are bi and therefore are also attracted to the same sex (as you said, they're "at last 50% gay" and can be shipped in gay pairings). However, if you have a non-canon BL or GL ship, saying one or both characters are bi is tantamount to treason. How dare you suggest they can be attracted to the opposite sex? That's erasing the gay representation!

Basically, bisexuality, much like the term "coding", gets treated like a tool that's allowed to exist only when it's convenient to a person, instead of as an actual sexuality real people have. I feel like bi, aroace, and pansexual people get shafted hard in fandoms in general.

Anyways, thank you for your support, Anon! I mentioned it in another post, but putting your likes and dislikes in the bio is a common practice in the Eastern part of the world, and I chose to copy that. I think it's a good way to meet people with similar interests while also letting those who have opposite interests avoid you. If the BL Anon had checked my bio first before following me, he could have spared himself some trouble haha. Sadly, it seems that many don't look at bios 😢

Thank you for your nice sentiments! I'm fairly confident that I won't be harassed, especially not in the reader-insert community, but I appreciate the thought! And hopefully I can find a way to combat the alienation... If not, then I'll simply uninstall both HSR and Genshin and find games that actually pander to me 😅

May you stay happy and free of harassment as well, dear Anon! 💚

So this post is kind of a sequel to this post. I wanted to go more in depth as to why I said that but also talk about why I feel like ther term anti and proshipper are both fundamentally broken. Again, I’m speaking from the experience of being an ex-proshipper. I’m neither of the two. I think both sides are bad and reductive. I’ve been on both sides and I’ve seen the toxicity of both sides. Do NOT call me anti and do NOT call me a proshipper.

Anyways even when I still considered myself to be part of that group, the trend with them calling conservatives and right-wingers “antis” started to come about. At first it wasn’t like that. On a surface level an anti was someone who was just an opposite of a proshipper, someone who harassed people in fandoms over ships or characters that they deemed problematic and harmful. Over time I started to notice proshippers calling people antis over minor disagreements and eventually they started calling actual bigots antis. By that point I started to become frustrated because this word that had a set definition already and actually did have a lot of right wing anti-sjw types in it, started to expand and expand until it became almost like an umbrella term for anything that was of the left.

Is an anti someone that harasses people over ships?

Is an anti a conservative/right winger/puritan?

Is an anti someone who doesn’t like proshippers?

Is an anti someone who doesn’t like a certain ship or character?

Is an anti someone who disagrees with a proshipper during a discussion?

And this isn’t stuff that I just pulled out of my ass, these are all different groups of people that ive seen proshippers call antis. If it’s all of the above then you’re grouping in actual dangerous political groups or people who want those groups to thrive with someone like me. Which is fucked up because conservatives/ right wingers/ puritans wants to eradicate me. That’s why I tell proshippers to not call me that (they do it anyways) because the term anti is too broad and encompasses too many things, just like the term proshipper.

Proship started off as “people who don’t harass others over ships and believe that fiction doesn’t affect reality in a 1:1 way.”

But now? I’ve seen proshippers say that proshipping is pro freedom of expression, pro-free speech, anti harassment, anti censorship, anti racism, pro lgbtq+ etc. Basically it is everything that is left leaning and everything that I also stand for. BUT. I’ve had them come to me over and over and tell me that it doesn’t matter that I’m left leaning, that I’m black, that I’m queer, that Im against harassment or hate speech or pro free speech or whatever. The mere fact that I think that shipping drama shouldn’t come up in discussions about real world topics and that complaining about “antis” when a post is talking about trans issues is tone deaf, was enough for them to label me an anti and much MUCH worse.

Things that are actually bad and actually dangerous are sharing the same label with things that aren’t. In the eyes of proshippers Iam on the same level as a person who wants me dead and has killed, tortured and attacked my people for decades and decades. When people genuinely believe that, it creates an all or nothing mentality. You’re either a proshipper or you’re a person who is a fascist or at the very least, supports fascism and im not using fascist randomly, it’s because I was called a fascist and a nazi for the same post that I mentioned above.

That “either your for us or against us” mentality is how you get absolutely insane coo coo takes like this

Where people insinuate that being a proshipper/supporting proshippers is somehow intrinsic to being queer and that setting up boundaries for them to not interact with you is seen as you forgetting your own people’s history…

Mind you, the proshipping community is mostly made up of white people and there is a racism problem in it that I’ve had to witness, ended up taking part in and was the victim of MULTIPLE times. And some of it is because they will slap the anti label onto anyone.

You know what happens when you’re labeled an anti by a proshipper? They show no sympathy towards you because they believe that antis are/ support oppressors. When you are labeled as an anti they don’t take the time to differentiate if you are Anti: Genuine Bigot Flavored™️ or Anti: Minor Disagreement Flavored™️. They just come at you as if you are actively trying to take away their rights.

This causes someone to go through harassment and this includes racist harassment.

And when a person who had to endure harassment from them says “hey I got fucking harassed, dog pilled and got slurs spammed in my inbox by y’all only for saying that I don’t like proshippers” they counteract it by saying “Woah! Sorry you went through that but those weren’t proshippers. We don’t stand for that, only antis harass people. So those were really antis!”

I’ve seen this happen and said over and over and over and it’s even been said to me after I was harassed.

Telling people that they have to let proshippers engage with them even if it is triggering to do or else you are an anti (everything they deem as oppressive) is almost cult-like.

TL;DR

“Anti” is a label that encompasses too many things which include acts of actual oppression with benign disagreements on ships and characters and because of this, it often groups in oppressors with the groups they seek out to oppress.

I know I complain a lot about fandom purity culture, but that’s because I think it’s a big issue and one that has affected me personally (no, not in any dramatic ways, but in small ways for sure).

For a personal example, when I started peeking around in the Beetlejuice musical fandom a few years ago, there were maaaany posts about how you are Very Bad if you ship Beetlejuice and Lydia, even if you only ship it when she’s an adult. I had been previously a little curious about the aged up movie version of that ship, but because the sentiment was so intense at that time I was like, “Okay, well … I guess it’s bad and won’t look into it further.”

But at a certain point I got fed up of seeing anti posts about a ship that is, quite honestly, a pretty pedestrian villain ship, and kinda felt like shipping it out of spite. And these days I’m now genuinely interested in the dynamic (again, when she is an adult). Now that I’m apparently reaching the IDGAF of my fandom life, I’ll probably reblog some art of it 🤷‍♀️

But yeah! Fandom purity culture makes you stifle harmless interests! There have been other times where I tried to align myself with more fandom purity culture arguments despite not 100% believing them in my gut. I grew up M/ormon, which has a traditional intense purity culture within it, so that’s prob why I fell into the fandom side of it for a little bit.

There are still things I think are gross and wish people wouldn’t write (like underage smut), but ultimately I’m pretty anti-censorship, especially considering how IRL purity culture against fiction manifests in insidious ways like the conservative culture war against libraries

I feel like I kinda rambled a lot, but … TLDR; fandom purity culture sucks and really isn’t good for the individual enjoyment of fandom and can make you pretend to believe things that you really don’t because you want to fit in and not be labeled as an IRL Bad Thing.

Okay just a little progress celebration. (Progress is not linear, but fuck it, I'm gonna give myself a widdle trophy.)

A friend messaged me to say they had picked up their old writing project again. That made me happy for them, and happy for me, because I was allowed to have sneak peeks of the work and its a fun story. I provided some feedback here and there, and I enjoy collaboration. Like a lot. But they eventually fell off like one does. Today though, they're full of inspiration and working on it but....

I can tell they're messaging me because they feel insecure about something. Boy howdy do I know all about that.

I don't mean to downplay their struggle, its just interesting how things can look once you've been through them yourself, and its happening to someone else. They expressed trepidation about the scene they intended to write, because it could be perceived as dubcon/noncon. Two characters romantically interested/involved with each other attend a rave, where one is using and the other is the DD. They fuck, and my friend was tied up in knots about it.

So I told them the very valuable advice that was given to me; kill the cop in your head. I offered to my friend that I write heinous, HEINOUS shit that they could not even imagine. But its words on paper, can't harm anyone. Basically I gave my impassioned anti-censorship speech, which this person was not quite expecting. I think they really thought I might say "oh, too far friend, too far."

My guy. If you only knew. And that's what I told them. Then they were honest with themselves and admitted that they're perfectly fine with the content because its right for the story. Its right for the character development. It's a more accurate reflection of real life than 100% wholesome, progressive, purity culture BS. (Well those were MY words after they admitted they didn't have a personal problem with the content of their writing.)

It's OTHER people they're worried about.

AAAAAaaah, now I see. See, I thought I saw before, but now I REALLY see. XD

This is the part of the conversation I'm jealous of. Where was I for myself 10, 15, 20 years ago? Thankfully, I'm here now for my friend.

"The people who will complain about this to you lack personal development." (I didn't say that anyone who doesn't like it lacks personal development, just that anyone with the lack of self awareness to center themselves against a work of art and complain out loud rather than walking away isn't someone I consider personally developed, self aware, or mature.)

That would have been so powerful to me to hear at ANY point. I also needed to be told that I lacked personal development, and then shown what that was.

Anyway that was the trick. My friend was back to homeostasis and eager to continue writing. The day is saved thanks to me.

I have a shit ton of homework I should be doing right now, but at this moment I’m going to address why I, as an author, have decided not to join the jegulus strike.

I want to firstly say that Im super proud of those of you who have decided to join the strike, that’s good for you, and I’m glad you’re making that choice for yourself.

The reason I have decided against joining the strike (there are a few reasons) are as follows

I don’t agree with some of the authors as writers. That’s not to say that they’re bad people, or bad writers, they’ve just made choices I don’t stand behind. I don’t think this is a reason not to join, it’s just something that influenced me.

Im a minor in the fandom. This strike seems to have stricken a chord particularly among the adults in the fandom, again not say that minors can’t join the strike, just a reason I haven’t.

There are more reasons, I won’t address every single one, but I do want to talk about a lot of the adult authors that I’ve seen shitting on the young people in the fandom. I can’t speak for everyone, but I really like the authors of the fandom, not just as authors, but as people. I enjoy their tumblr posts, I understand that they are people, not robots, and I generally want the best for them. It’s really disheartening to see an author that I’ve looked up to for a really long time talking about how we “invaded their fandom” and that “we all need to be woke and morality police them”. It fucking sucks. Us smaller, younger authors have feelings too, and constantly ranting about how much you want us out of your fandom really sucks. I wanted to be just like you, and you don’t even want me here.

Now I’m not saying that these people deserve DEATH THREATS, I’m just saying that yeah, having people you look up to complaining about you hurts a little. I’m still taking a small break, but I don’t consider myself to be a part of no post November.

We really need to be nicer. Everyone needs to band together to stop being assholes. Once again, full respect to everyone participating, you have my blessing (not that you asked) and I think it’s awesome that you’re standing up for yourselves! I also want to say that if you’re hating on people who ARENT participating, you’re part of the problem. You’re not a bad person for choosing to post in November. The fics are for you, post them when you choose. It’s really sad that we’ve come to a strike just for people to treat us like people, but there are so many sides to this that make it hard for me to choose to participate.

In summary (why is this so fucking long 😭) post what you like, when you like. If you don’t like it, just roll your eyes and stop reading. Don’t send death threats, that’s never cool. If you want more updates, tell the author how much you love their work, don’t harass them. The adults in the fandom need to stop shitting on the minors. We just wanted a community, and I agree, some of us are obsessed with being “woke” and I don’t believe in censorship, but it’s really sickening when your favorite people are talking about how much you fucked up their fandom. Full respect to anyone who participates in no post November, and absolute love to anyone who chooses not to. Harassing people for not participating is just as bad as harassing authors, and if you’re doing that you’ve missed the point.

By: Richard Dawkins

Published: Aug 20, 2023

I was about to start work on this commission, when in came an email from Twitter. They’d received a complaint that the following tweet violated their standards.

“Sex is not the same as gender.” But it’s not your gender that gives you the physique to tower over woman athletes & break their swimming records. It’s your sex. It’s not your undressed gender that upsets women in changing rooms. It’s your sex. You can’t eat your cake & have it.

Twitter sensibly over-ruled the complaint and cleared me of the proscribed sins that they helpfully listed for me:

Violent speech, violent and hateful entities, child sexual exploitation, abuse/harassment, hateful conduct, perpetrators of violent attacks, suicide, sensitive media, illegal, private information, non-consensual nudity, account compromise, plus various legal technicalities.

I’m sure the complainant was sincere. And that’s my point. A certain type of activist has a level of paranoid hypersensitivity that almost literally warps their hearing. You can say ,“I disagree with you for the following reasons.” But all they actually hear is “Hate hate hate!” So instead of putting a counter-argument (which I would be interested to hear), they resort to censorship. All too often it goes further, and they boil over in virulent abuse: “Transphobe! TERF!”

At least the above tweet was partisan. But so hair-trigger is the hypersensitivity, a mere invitation to discuss something is enough to set it off.

In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.

That 2021 tweet caused the American Humanist Association to withdraw my title as 1996 Humanist of the Year. A 25-year retrospective swipe, which cost them the loss of several major donors. Once again, I have no doubt they were sincere.

On July 26, I interviewed Helen Joyce about her book Trans. The interview is being very well received on YouTube. As it should be, for Joyce is extremely well-informed in her subject and she spoke cogently, soberly, reasonably.

But one of YouTube’s in-house judges heard only hate. And tried to censor the interview.

Short of an outright ban, YouTube has a variety of punishments at its disposal. In this case we got a minor slap on the wrist, a restriction on our video’s licence to advertise. But the real point is, yet again, the ludicrous hypersensitivity of the complainant. Those warped ears heard not reasonable argument deserving a reply, but “hateful and derogatory content”, and “hate or harassment towards individuals or groups”.

Obviously I can’t disprove that here. The interview runs to more than 10,000 words. But judge for yourself, it’s still up on YouTube. I earnestly challenge Evening Standard readers to search diligently for literally anything that a reasonable speaker of the English language could fairly call hateful. Enter it, labelled “Challenge”, in the comments section under the video, and I promise to respond.

I just said “a reasonable speaker of the English language”, and maybe here lies the key: language. If we want a fruitful argument, we’d better speak the same language. In today’s overheated sparring over sex and gender, both sides may appear to be speaking English, but is it the same English? Does “hate” mean to you what “hate” means to everyone else?

Or there’s “violence”. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the deliberate exercise of physical force against a person, property, etc”, and that is certainly the meaning I understand. Advocates of free speech often invoke, as a sensible exception, “incitement to violence”, where physical force is normally implied. But that sensible exception would mean something very different if you redefine “violence” to include the non-physical. If someone calls you “she” when you prefer “they”, I might see it as a mild discourtesy. But if you see it as a “violent” threat to your very existence, then our interpretations of “incitement to violence” — and hence of freedom of speech — are going to diverge sharply.

As a textbook example of incitement to real violence, you could hardly do better than “Sarah Jane” Baker’s speech at London Pride this year, where she told the cheering crowd: “If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face”. Or Sky News (January 23) has a picture of two SNP politicians grinning in front of a large, colourful sign depicting a guillotine and the slogan “DECAPITATE TERFS”. They claimed they didn’t know the sign was there, and I sympathise. You shouldn’t be blamed for the company you keep. No doubt I shall be labelled “right-wing” for writing this article — and that’s the most unkindest cut of all.

The Guardian (February 14, 2020) reported that police officers turned up at Harry Miller’s workplace to warn him about his allegedly “transphobic” tweets, such as the obviously satirical, “I was assigned Mammal at Birth, but my orientation is Fish. Don’t mis-species me.” One of them told Miller that he had not committed a crime, but his tweeting “was being recorded as a hate incident”.

Well, if Miller’s light-hearted satire is a hate incident, why not go after Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Rowan Atkinson, Private Eye’s royal romances of Sylvie Krin, the early novels of Evelyn Waugh, Lady Addle Remembers, Tom Lehrer, even the benign PG Wodehouse? Satire is satire. That’s what satirists do, they get good-natured laughs and perform a valuable service to society.

“Assigned Mammal at Birth” satirises the trans-speak evasion of the biological fact that our sex is determined at conception by an X or a Y sperm. What I didn’t know, and learned from Joyce in our interview, is that small children are being taught, using a series of colourful little books and videos, that their “assigned” sex is just a doctor’s best guess, looking at them when they were born.

A provisional guess, pending the child’s own decision (which is what really counts).

Joyce’s comment is: “And what are you meant to make of this if you’re eight? First off, that you’re very boring if you simply go along with what you were assigned at birth”. Her book quotes the boast of a mother of eight children, “without a single boring cis child in the whole bunch!” I recently received a moving letter from a highly intelligent American 12-year-old, worried that at her school it was not cool to retain your assigned gender. Yesterday I chanced to meet an American teacher whose school rules compel her to go along with a child’s declared gender and not tell the parents.

Miller’s case came up before Mr Justice Knowles, who thankfully didn’t mince words when it came to freedom of speech: “In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society”. 1984’s Appendix lays out the principles of Newspeak, the nascent language of Orwell’s dark dystopia. Newspeak was designed to make unorthodox thoughts impossible. There would be no words to express them.

O’Brien, Big Brother’s enforcer, holds up four fingers, and tortures Winston Smith until he really believes that 2+2= 5 if the Party wills it. Is that realistic? Could political power ever make you really believe a logical contradiction? The Times (January 18) reported that “a transgender woman has denied raping two women with her penis”. If “with her penis” is not quite 2+2= 5, it’s getting close. 2+2= 4.5? Joyce’s book quotes Orwell in an epigraph: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Are we approaching that point?

But shouldn’t we just indulge the harmless whims of an oppressed minority? Maybe, were it not for a strain of aggressive bossiness which insists, not so very harmlessly and not sounding very oppressed, that the rest of us must humour those whims and join in. This compulsion even has the force of law in some states. And alas, we often zip our lips in abject self-censorship because we aren’t as brave as JK Rowling, and don’t fancy becoming a target of Twittermob vitriol. No, we don’t fear Big Brother or the Stasi. We fear each other.

==

It's a feature, not a bug.

You're not supposed to discuss, you're not allowed to consider, it's not acceptable to debate - #NoDebate. You're just supposed to believe, based on faith. "Listen and believe." If you question it or doubt it, then it's because you're a heretic with Satan in your heart who wants to lead others to their damnation. Salvation is not up for debate when souls are at risk.

Lady C Tea YouTube 10/12/23 (a few nuggets paraphrased by me) by u/daisybeach23

Lady C Tea YouTube 10/12/23 (a few nuggets paraphrased by me) Greetings from Castle Goring!Let me read a statement from Harry, The Duke of Sussex. This is in relation to their attempts to use children and certain abuses online to further his and Meghan’s agenda of censorship. In that ridiculous symposium that he and Meghan were parachuted into by the largest company on earth, Blackrock. Harry said, “There is a reason why no one is working in this space. The size and power of these companies can make you feel scared and helpless. We all realize that.” Without realizing it, Harry is giving the game totally away, because HE is being backed by a large company and HE is not scared, nor is Meghan. In fact, he is using the company and they are using Harry and Meghan to increase a stranglehold on information. I have to give this a bit of a recap. They arrived in a 7-car convoy to travel 200 feet. They could have walked it in three minutes. Of course, that would have denied them to show how much they need security and how much they need 7 cars to protect them. What kind of protection are we getting against their word salad and rubbish? I suppose you must be careful about your carbon footprint but they do not. And, did you notice what she was wearing? She wore evening wear in the daytime, yet again. I have said this before. Meghan has no clue how to dress. She has no clue what is appropriate. She wore eveningwear to Trouping the Colour and church services during the day, in Britain. She wore a variation of the same outfit she wore to Ripple of Hope awards where she insists on showing us her big, broad shoulders. To wear evening wear in the middle of the afternoon, who does that except a tart or a scrubber? The woman is so inappropriate at all times it is beyond me. I don’t know if you noticed Catherine wore a smart trouser suit for the whole day. I don’t know if you noticed Meghan stopped off at a school on Brooklyn, Meghan wore spray on trousers. I don’t know if you have noticed but Meghan think she has the best figure and the best legs in the world when they are actually shapeless. She thinks her legs are the benchmark for leggy beauty. There is something deeply disconcerting about someone who is a public figure, objectifying herself. Remember she complained about being objectified by Deal or No Deal, but on two occasions in New York she objectified herself physically. The first time, she showed us her legs and chicken foot and then she showed us her bare shoulders. I am going to read a few remarks from the newspapers. This is going to show that despite Meghan and Harry’s efforts to be taken seriously, they are treated like a joke. Except for Harpers Bazaar who said she cemented her fashion icon status in an off the shoulder pantsuit. LOL….LOL….no, my dear…I was a student at the Fashion Institute. I am here to tell you that Diana Vreeland and Carmel Snow would be spinning in their graves that the magazine they made famous would make such a ridiculous statement. And when is Meghan going to stop emulating Medusa? We already know you are just like Medusa. The New York Post, Page Six, Associated Press and Town and Country all mentioned Harry and Meghan made their first return to New York after their “near catastrophic car chase.” Oh my was that the two hour car chase where they were traveling at two miles per hour? Sniff Sniff. The whole thing was a study in indignity, rampant exhibition of greed and power grabbing.

{Commission Info} Closed

Hi, I'm Zero - Welcome to my pond! And if you come from the old blog, nice to see you again ♥

Blog Navigation: My Art - My Fanfiction (includes things I don't post on AO3) You can find my other socials here. I recently made one in hope to escape the rampant censorship, we'll see how it goes.

The posts in which I complain about stuff are tagged #ramblings if you want to avoid them.

I'm currently hyperfixating on DCU/Batman, especially the Sladick niche. I also post/reblog batfamily content (batcest or just wholesome), with a mix of dark/fucked up things & fluff/wholesome things. I love being gross to Dick though no one is safe from me.

I love all DC ships, just not equally! Almost nothing grosses me out and I don't have NOTPs, so know that you can find just about anything here, 90% of which is DC Centered. Feel free to send me prompts, brainworms or ficlets, I love them all and I love your ideas ♥

I am every fucked up character's apologist - they looked great while doing their thing and I stan all the evil queens, kings and monarchs, irredeemable or otherwise.

I post/reblog nsfw, but given that tumblr started trying to kill my previous blog although everything was always tagged & censored properly, the censorship here is going to be more severe. Links will be provided for uncropped/uncensored versions of my art where needed!

I am regardless uncomfortable with minors following me, so please If you're a minor or uncomfortable with kinky stuff, DNF or just block me. Fyi:

I like fucked up shit and I will sometimes post/reblog it

I'm queer, polyamorous, and a bitch who does their own thing & is interacting with fandom stuff cause real life sucks. It is not in my interest to directly engage with fandom discourse, but my stance is that if you can't make a difference between reality and fiction, and you feel the need to personally attack people who dabble in content that makes you uncomfortable, block me because you won't like what I do.

I don't bother writing out under every post the classic "I don't condone this in real life!1" because I feel it's unnecessary - I assume that who follows me has enough critical thinking skills to not need a reminder, but in case you do you can have it here: I don't condone any fucked up fandom thing in real life, this is fiction, no one is getting hurt & we're just having fun. Again if you don't manage to grasp this then please kindly block me.

Last but not least - this blog really hates capitalism, racists, terfs, swerfs, all flavors of queerphobes, ableists and exclusionists of any kind.

Again if any of the aforementioned bothers you on any level, do unfollow/block me and let's all keep conducting our peaceful existences away from each other.

If you decide to stay - feel free to send me asks, whether it's questions, art/fanfiction requests, if you want feedback on something you wrote or if you just wanna chat. I can't guarantee I'll be able to create some art/writing for you, but I really appreciate it 💚 💛 (pro-tip: if it's Sladick it's more likely that I'll do it!). You can also send me hate if that's your thing, I won't kinkshame you I promise.

Stay exceedingly handsome!

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

I don’t know how many of you have read George Orwell's "1984", but it is a story about one mans ultimately pointless struggle against a country governed by propaganda, surveillance and censorship: a country where all citizens must come to love “Big Brother".

Big Brother has his face on every wall, his eyes following your every move, and the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” is plastered on every building.  In the country ruled by Big Brother, people are short of food, social services are crumbling, the population live in poverty, electronic surveillance is everywhere, while those at the top of society live in  luxury. The novel is set in England.

In this dystopian England we have “doublethink", which is the act of holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time and believing both: e.g. Boris Johnson and Partygate. Then there is the Ministry of Truth, which rewrites history to suite Big Brother's agenda: e.g. the Tories constantly saying it was the Labour Party that bankrupt the country in 2008 when it was in fact the greed of bankers. There is also the Thought Police who are charged with arresting people with “thoughtcrime": e.g. the police upholding a vexatious complaint against Stella Creasy that might have led to her children being taken into care simply because the complainant did not agree with her socio-political views.

The hero of the novel, Winston Smith, does his best to resist Big Brother and the corrupt powers of the state but the odds are stacked against him. At the end of the novel he finds himself in Room 101, the room all dissidents are taken to be tortured by their worse fears. In Winston’s case it is dark places inhabited by rats, and when he is threatened by having a cage full of live rats put on his head so they can eat his face he surrenders to his torturers and betrays Julie,  the woman he loves.

But it is not enough for Winston to have surrendered his individuality and those dear to him, for Big Brother demands not only loyalty and obedience: he demands that his subjects love him.

Before Winston is moved to Room 101 he is told:

“You hate him (Big Brother) Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love him”

I realise that it is probably only me who sees parallels between Orwell’s 1984 and present day England but I do find the proposed oath of allegiance to King Charles  - euphemistically, called the   “Homage of the People” - sinisterly worrying. Does the King really expect us to stand up in front of our tv sets and other electronic devices, hands on heart, and pledge our allegiance to him?

“ I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God." God Save King Charles. Long Live King Charles. May The King live forever.”

Not quite the expression of love Big Brother would have demanded but pretty close. As for us wanting the king to live "forever", well, that’s just downright bazaar.  Does the king see himself as a god or is he  just a delusional? The sound of a “chorus of millions of voices”, all pledging allegiance to King Charles has more in common with Kim Jong Un’s North Korea than it does democratic Britain.  It also  has a parallel in “1984” wherein the population has to stand in front of their screens and chant the name Big Brother,  Big Brother” over and over again.

In “1984”, Winston’s lover, Julie, tells him:

 "It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything—anything—but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you." 

If only that were true.