History will be adjusted

When they got to the first barrier, Hulk smashed it.

When they got to the second barrier, Tony Stark fired up his Iron Man suit and blasted a hole through it.

When they got to the third barrier, Thor took out Mjolnir and bopped a hole in it.

Then they got to the fourth wall, and Deadpool said, “Am I supposed to be the punchline to this joke?”

peter parker: mr. drax? I would die for you

The rest of the Avengers: Ohmygod Peter honey it’s okay it’ll get better I promise please don’t say things like that you’re gonna be okay-

I could get lucky at this point. It doesn’t always show up on tests. I wouldn’t say that my body is a fifty-fifty split. But.

Days or weeks later a couple people from management will pull me off the lanes and take me into the nurse’s office. They’ll open the door for me and say “Sorry, buddy, I know this is a hassle” and they’ll say I have to do it again because my sample looked contaminated. (I did like a 23andMe thing once and they kept telling me they thought my sample must have gotten mixed with some else’s - it’s probably just the way these labs work, the checking process for your sample is probably automated.) But I’ll grunt and say “it’s fine” and sit in a chair and spit into another tube while they stare at me. I might have to repeat the process until they figure out I used to be twins, a boy twin and a girl twin, and my genetics reflect that. (”Oh wow I didn’t know that about you,” will the manager say, trying really hard to make encouraging small talk.)  

Then I’ll find out that there’s some problem with my paycheck or the ID reader thing won’t let me clock in and I’ll go to the HR desk and spend like ten minutes being bored in line while the people in front of me figure out their parking passes or lost passwords and they say there’s some red tape I have to jump through about my gender, it’s not a big deal, you just have to go get a doctor to sign off on - (awkward pause) - on one or another before I go back to work, it’s a federal regulation thing. I’ll irritably play a lot of phone tag trying to make sure I don’t use my UPT (unpaid time off) hours while I can’t work, and then go to the health center the next town over where I used to get my fillings done. The 21-year-old receptionist will give me kind of a pained look when she calls me to the front and I’ll try to act casual for her sake, or maybe I’ll feel defiant and show her I’m uncomfortable and annoyed just to make her feel bad, because she’s the closest approximate thing to a target. (although I won’t, because I’m too old for that and it’s not her fault). The doctor will give me a tight smile and say “Sorry, I know this is invasive.” Then I’ll go home and bitch about it on Tumblr. 

I don’t know exactly what happens next, maybe I’ll lose my job and the state will give me a letter saying that owing to United States regulation they can’t offer Medicaid to (they’ll phrase it in the most neutral possible way, like “those with a gender or sex ambiguity“ - you know, they’re trying to make it sound like they’re still progressive and their hands are tied, all saying that gender and sex are different), and then I’ll bitch about that on Tumblr too, but whatever, I managed bipolar for so long when I was undiagnosed, I don’t need to afford my meds. 

That’s about as far as my imagination goes, but even if they decided to straight-up euthanize me it’s going to be boring, and there’ll be a lot of papers to sign and a lot of shuffling around near plastic tables under fluorescent lights, and it’s not going to feel dramatic and it’s not going to feel like something with a clear way to fight. Jackbooted thugs who I can heroically punch or physically escape from will probably not show up at my house in the middle of the night (and if they do I’d really be fucked, but at least I’d get an adrenaline rush out of it).

I dunno, it might come from being a Slav and knowing people who lived under Communism, but I see the future and not only are we all going to lose our rights and die, it’s going to be slow, boring, and really fucking annoying, and because of that it’ll creep up on us. 

Of course, the upside of this is that the change we want will creep up on them too. You vote, your friends vote, Republicans lose the majority. You vote (vote, goddamn you) in local elections and get better quality candidates if you don’t like the ones we got. Donation posts go around Tumblr and we can gofundme crack teams of immigration lawyers. (Also, check Charity [Navigator] for charities that work with refugees and immigrants.) (While you’re at it, here are [some] LGBT charities too, including one for intersex rights and those supporting LGBT immigrants and asylum seekers.) The ways that you can help are also not dramatic. When they come you have to notice them.

1) Each is highly concerned about hypothetical children being harmed.

E.g. “That fetus could grow up to be president!”/ “An impressionable minor could read that fic and think (bad thing) is normal and okay!”

2) Each targets actual, currently existing people for harassment because “they don’t have morals”.

E.g. “you’re murdering your baby!” / “you are causing pedos to molest kids!”

3) Each believes in viciously punishing individuals as normal and okay, and refuses to look at other options to reduce harm.

E.g. Campaigning to outright ban abortions, instead of finding out why unwanted pregnancies happen in the first place and supporting folks in family planning / attacking ao3 and attempting to destroy its income instead of raising money to set up their own archive

4) Both operate with exceedingly us-or-them tactics, and frame “winning” as a question of base morality. Have no compunctions about sending threats to people they feel are “on the wrong side”.

E.g. Sending those lovely suicide bait messages (both sides do this one ;)

If this post made you angry, that is part of the point.

What we are seeing, not only in fandom but in the political sphere, is mind viruses.

In the modern internet world, evoking intense emotion (whether or not there's any validity to the argument itself) is the fastest way to spread an idea from person to person

because fandom policers won’t feel safe enough if they just establish a safe space they control. they will only feel safe once every space is a ‘safe space’ they control. 

(wherein ‘safe space’ is ‘space that follows my social rules/makes me & my own feel safe’, not ‘a place where everyone present feels safe’.)

at heart, I think most fandom policers are afraid: afraid of being ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. afraid of exposure to new ideas. afraid of facing the trauma of past experiences, and afraid of being hurt by new experiences. afraid to tolerate the worldviews of others; afraid to admit that more than one healthy way of reacting to the horrible things in this world exists. and fandom/fanworks are full of these things, because they come from such a diverse group of people.

the existence of anything outside their control means they could, at any moment, encounter something that makes them afraid - and being reminded that they are afraid makes them angry. but anger is a ‘bad’ emotion - unless it’s righteous anger, or justified anger. so: everything that makes them angry is a dangerous influence that must be destroyed. justification established. now it is their duty to make the world a space that’s ‘safe’ for them.

tl;dr policing fandom is an authoritarian social model, and authoritarianism is about assuaging fear by assuming absolute control.

unfortunately for them, it’s an impossible task. (unfortunately for us, it won’t stop them from trying.)

I just met you (and this is crazy)

After Steve gets outed by a grainy cell phone picture, it takes the media less than 24 hours to discover Captain America’s secret relationship with James Barnes: classical musician, teen heartthrob, and son of a former president.

The only problem? Steve has never met James Barnes in his life.

@radrupee on IG.