in 2004 george w bush won the presidential election and promised in his acceptance speech to codify a federal ban on gay marriage. 30 states passed bans on gay marriage in the wake of his re-election. and then they fell. one by one by one. it has to get worse before it gets better.
queers. trans people especially. our attitude for the next decade has to be “we’re not fucking scared of you”. do you understand? this has always been at the core of who we are and what we do. we fucking move. we take up space or carve out our own with our bare hands. we take care of us.
do you know the other queers in your neighborhood? do you know who you can call at a bad time? do you know whose house you can crash at? do you know where you can go for a free meal? do you know where you can bring meals to the hungry? do you know the LGBT resources available in your area? do you know the informed consent clinics in your area?
do you know how DIY HRT works? do you know and have friends who don’t? do you know our history? have you read the works of james baldwin and leslie feinberg? are you equipped with knowledge about the forces that work against us? do you understand dialectical materialism? do you know what to say if stopped by the police? do you know what good opsec is? are your legal documents in order? do you know how to get them in order?
scream, cry, rot in your bed, do whatever you need to do to process this, then find something to do. do not fall into despair. in the face of extermination say “fuck you.”
Couldn’t find the original post this morning but was thinking again about how Bella survived almost everything that ‘killed’ the other Cullens.
She survived (and remained human) being hunted by James (Alice).
She survived (and remained human) being bitten by a vampire (Carlisle, Jasper).
She survived jumping off a cliff (Esme).
She was saved from being attacked by a group of men (Rosalie).
Didn’t she have the flu or something in New Moon? (Edward)
The only one she didn’t was Emmett. But you could argue Paul phasing and Jacob protecting her is sort of similar to a 'bear’ attack?
I remember someone brought this up to SM at a Q&A once and she was like, “oh interesting, I hadn’t thought of that!” so it doesn’t seem to have been intentional, or at least not consciously so. It’s probably just a function of the 'danger magnet’ stuff and Bella being the MC who needed to survive for the story to continue.
and of course, she’s “"smart”“ enough to just cut her arm rather than stab herself in the heart, thereby surviving what killed the Third Wife
SHOW UP FOR OUR LIBRARIES! 📚 CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPEOPLE!
Here’s a couple actual links to concrete things you can do to help, as determined by the American Library Association, who already stopped this maniac from doing this once. There are many smart & experienced people fighting for libraries & museums, but they need your help too.
And if you want an easy way to contact your Congresscritters directly, text 50409 or search for ResistBot on Telegram to email, call or fax you Congresscritters. Libraries support democracy & are the last free reliably available 3rd Space in America. This is absolutely an emergency as serious as any of the other major institutional destructions so far this year.
what makes me actually boil with rage is the way it’s framed as though jacob & the cullens have an even rivalry and like, he hates them just as much as they hate him, but like… jacob is a lower class kid who lives on the rez, the cullens live in a plantation home on private property. jacob calling alice a leech is an insult, but alice calling him a mongrel calls into power and privilege, ya know. like am i supposed to honestly think jake making blonde jokes to rosalie (which is certainly sexist and uncalled for) is on the same level as her serving him food in a dog dish? him seeing the cullens as bloodsuckers and murderers is just like, incorrect and unfair, but them seeing him as uncivilized and over-aggressive has implications deeply rooted in the oppression of his people
