Corullinterests

OMG guys. I must have been going back and forth on the Good Omens episodes too much (a shock, I know) that Amazon Prime couldn’t take it anymore and had a glitch. Basically, the subtitles of episode 1 were slapped onto the visuals of episode 6. I was about to refresh until I realized that watching the episode this way brought some absolute gems:

(Snake sushi, I guess)

(asdhasjkldhkajsdhksjadh)

(I laughed so hard I nearly woke my mom on the second floor)

(Mood)

(…okay…?)

(That is what’s happening, yes)

(Yay demon bathing in holy water)

(accidental spoiler)

 Except I was watching episode 3 and it gave me subtitles from episode 6

mood

I guess goats have brakes now

RIP jesus

This was the one that I scared the cat laughing at

That’s just Rome, honestly

rip king arthur

it’s okay shakespeare, computers are hard

my favorite ^

Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten. 

They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it. 

The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.

Is there any way to spread this info? 

THE OTW WAS CREATED BY FANS SO WE’D HAVE AN ARCHIVE THAT WASN’T SUBJECT TO CORPORATE REVIEW. 

Nonprofit, so that nobody could ever say, “this isn’t making enough money; it’s getting shut down.” (See: Geocities, Quizilla, Figment, G+.) With lawyers involved and a firm awareness of the legalities of fanfic, so nobody would decide “we’ve gotten a nasty letter from a megacorporation with lawyers, so we’re hiding because we can’t afford to face a lawsuit. (Jedi Hurtaholics, Trevizo’s Millennium site.) With teams, so that an argument between co-mods didn’t result in the destruction of a whole archive. (Gryffindor Tower, Detention.)

AO3 IS OUR SITE.

It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags. 

(And the other OTW projects, too. Fans manage the entries at Fanlore. Fans run the Open Doors project. Fans publish Transformative Works and Cultures.)

EVERYONE WORKING FOR THE OTW LOVES FANDOM. Wants it to survive. Wants it to be awesome for everyone.

(Knows that it can’t be awesome for everyone; some approaches to fandom just clash hard. But they strive to minimize those clashes as much as possible, because they love fandom.) 

AO3 is not some company that decided, “we’ll make a site for fanfic and then…” I don’t know what people are thinking is the reason. Money? Data harvesting? Tax shelter? Amusement and pity?

Nope; AO3 was fans saying, “Livejournal sucks; we’re tired of this fucked-up ‘rebuild every three years’ garbage; WE NEED TO OWN THE DAMN SERVERS.”

♪ ♫ All the teardrops in her heart ’Cause they can’t make her cry… Makes no difference how they try They’ll never make her cry ♪ ♫ 

but races for elected office are not all that’s on the ballot. there are also ballot measures, where you get to vote directly on the law.

consider taking a minute and looking up this year’s ballot measures for your state. there may be some that would directly help, or directly harm, your community.

to give just a few examples:

in Alabama, Amendment 2 would restrict abortion rights, completely banning it if Roe v. Wade is overturned, which is now likely.

in Arkansas, Issue 2 would disenfranchise voters by requiring photo ID. 

in Florida, Amendment 5 would make it much harder to raise taxes.

in Louisiana, Amendment 1 would ban people with felony records who’ve served their time from running for office for 5 years, even if their offense was just e.g. marijuana possession.

in North Carolina, the Income Tax Cap Amendment would cap income taxes, and the Voter ID Amendment would disenfranchise voters by requiring photo ID. 

in Oregon, Measure 105 would repeal its sanctuary state law protecting immigrants, and Measure 106 would restrict abortion rights by banning public funds from being spent on abortions.

in West Virginia, Amendment 1 would completely ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned, which is now likely.

meanwhile, on the brighter side:

in Arizona, Proposition 127 would require renewable energy.

in Arkansas, Issue 5 would raise the minimum wage to $11.

in California, Prop 2 would fund housing for the homeless, and Prop 10 would allow local rent control.

in Colorado, Amendment A would fucking ban slavery as punishment for a crime. (yes, that’s a real thing.) Amendments Y and Z would hopefully limit gerrymandering. Amendment 73 would tax the rich to pay for education. Proposition 111 would crack down on predatory payday loans.

in Florida, Amendment 4 would restore voting rights to people with felony records who’ve served their time, and Amendment 9 would ban offshore drilling (and also vaping in the workplace, because Florida is weird).

in Idaho, Proposition 2 would expand Medicaid eligibility.

in Louisiana, Amendment 2 would repeal a Jim Crow–era law that aimed to “increase the supply of free prison labor and nullify the voting power of black jurors” by making it possible to convict someone of a felony without a unanimous jury.

in Maine, Question 1 would fund a universal home-care program for disabled people and older adults.

in Maryland, Question 2 would allow election-day voter registration.

in Massachusetts, Question 3 would protect the state’s transgender anti-discrimination law which is under attack. (it’s not good that this question is on the ballot, but you do need to vote YES on it.)

in Michigan, Proposal 1 would legalize recreational marijuana, and Proposal 3 would strengthen voting rights by instituting automatic voter registration, expanding absentee voting, pushing back deadlines, and more.

in Missouri, Amendment 2, Amendment 3, and Proposition C would all legalize medical marijuana (but they’d tax it different amounts and use the taxes for different things — you be the judge). Amendment 1 would make reforms to lobbying, campaign finance, and redistricting, and Proposition B would raise the minimum wage to $12.

in Montana, I-185 would expand Medicaid eligibility.

in Nebraska, Initiative 427 would expand Medicaid eligibility.

in Nevada, Question 5 would allow automatic voter registration, and Question 6 would require renewable energy.

in North Dakota, Measure 3 would legalize recreational marijuana and expunge existing marijuana convictions.

in Ohio, Issue 1 would downgrade drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors and provide for some criminal justice reforms.

in Utah, Proposition 2 would legalize medical marijuana, and Proposition 3 would expand Medicaid eligibility.

in Washington, Initiative 940 would train cops not to murder people, and Initiative 1631 would charge polluters a fee on carbon emissions and fund environmental programs.

the outcomes of these and other important initiatives will be determined at the ballot box. you can make a direct impact on these issues in your state by doing your research and voting.

can’t vote? search for an organization supporting (or opposing) the initiative you care about, and consider donating your time or money to help them out.

This blogger remembers when we didn’t have AO3.

This blogger remembers when we had to put disclaimers at the head of our fics and pray that someone didn’t take it into their heads to sue us for what we created.

This blogger remembers brilliant artists and writers getting decades of work obliterated on LJ because someone who wanted to tell people what they were allowed to create went running to someone who wanted a profit, and told them the artists and writers had been naughty.

This blogger remembers just how hard the creators of AO3 worked to build the thing we all seem to take for granted now.

This blogger watched friends dive into the creation process so heartily and determinedly that they all but disappeared from the writing/gaming/artistic side of their fandom for YEARS while they worked to make the archive happen.

This blogger remembers the sense of giddy wonder that there would possibly be LAWYERS involved, willing to defend our right to create these works, and not leave us hanging at the mercy of corporate legal teams.

This blogger is aware that she reads between twenty to fifty books’ worth of material every year on AO3, and is never REQUIRED to pay a penny for the privilege of getting access.

This blogger is aware that she will not ever see advertisements on AO3, and that her personal data and reading preferences won’t be sold to advertisers in order to raise the money that AO3 needs to pay for the services they provide.

This blogger is aware that AO3 is, and has always been, a labor of love; by fans, for fans, and not for profiting off fans – and this is what makes it unique in the whole of the media universe.

Casablanca takes place in, well, Casablanca, the largest city in (neutral) Morocco in 1941, at Rick’s American Cafe (Rick is Humphrey Bogart’s character you see there). In 1941, America was also still neutral, and Rick’s establishment is open to everyone: Nazi German officials, officials from Vichy (occupied) France, and refugees from all across Europe desperate to escape the German war engine. A neutral cafe in a netural country is probably the only place you’d have seen a cross-section like this in 1941, only six months after the fall of France.

So, the scene opens with Rick arguing with Laszlo, who is a Czech Resistance fighter fleeing from the Nazis (if you’re wondering what they’re arguing about: Rick has illegal transit papers which would allow Laszlo and his wife, Ilsa, to escape to America, so he could continue raising support against the Germans. Rick refuses to sell because he’s in love with Laszlo’s wife). They’re interrupted by that cadre of German officers singing Die Wacht am Rhein: a German patriotic hymn which was adopted with great verve by the Nazi regime, and which is particularly steeped in anti-French history. This depresses the hell out of everybody at the club, and infuriates Laszlo, who storms downstairs and orders the house band to play La Marseillaise: the national anthem of France.

Wait, but when I say “it’s the national anthem of France,” I don’t want you to think of your national anthem, okay? Wherever you’re from. Because France’s anthem isn’t talking about some glorious long-ago battle, or France’s beautiful hills and countrysides. La Marseillaise is FUCKING BRUTAL. Here’s a translation of what they’re singing:

Arise, children of the Fatherland! The day of glory has arrived! Against us, tyranny raises its bloody banner. Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers? They’re coming to your land to cut the throats of your women and children!

To arms, citizens! Form your battalions! Let’s march, let’s march! Let their impure blood water our fields!

BRUTAL, like I said. DEFIANT, in these circumstances. And the entire cafe stands up and sings it passionately, drowning out the Germans. The Germans who are, in 1941, still terrifyingly ascendant, and seemingly invincible.

“Vive la France! Vive la France!” the crowd cries when it’s over. France has already been defeated, the German war machine roars on, and the people still refuse to give up hope.

But here’s the real kicker, for me: Casablanca came out in 1942. None of this was ‘history’ to the people who first saw it. Real refugees from the Nazis, afraid for their lives, watched this movie and took heart. These were current events when this aired. Victory over Germany was still far from certain. The hope it gave to people then was as desperately needed as it has been at any time in history.

paul heinreid, who played laszlo the resistance leader, was a famous austrian actor; he was so anti-hitler that he was named an enemy of the reich. ugarte, the petty thief who stole the illegal transit papers laszlo and victor are arguing about? was played by peter lorre, a jewish refugee. carl, the head waiter? played by s.z. sakall, a hungarian-jew whose three sisters died in the holocaust. 

even the main nazi character was played by a german refugee: conrad veidt, who starred in one of the first sympathetic films about gay men and who fled the nazis with his jewish wife. 

there’s one person in this scene that deserves special mention. did you notice the woman at the bar, on the verge of tears as she belts out la marseillaise? she’s yvonne, rick’s ex-girlfriend in the film. in real life, the actress’s name is madeleine lebeau and she basically lived the plot of this film: she and her jewish husband fled paris ahead of the germans in 1940. her husband, macel dalio, is also in the film, playing the guy working the roulette table. after they occupied paris, the nazis used his face on posters to represent a “typical jew.” madeleine and  marcel managed to get to lisbon (the goal of all the characters in casablanca), and boarded a ship to the americas… but then they were stranded for two months when it turned out their visa papers were forgeries. they eventually entered the US after securing temporary canadian visas. marcel dalio’s entire family died in concentration camps. 

go back and rewatch the clip. watch madeleine lebeau’s face.

I never really got it until my father (raised by his Jewish grandmother who fled Austria with the clothes on her back and a single suitcase and swathes of dead loved ones left behind) sat me down and told me the full context of when the movie was made, what it was actually about and who it was made for.

It made his casual way of saying “here’s looking at you kid” whenever we skipped school to go to protest rallies (start of the Iraq war) all the more poignant for me. I just thought he was being an old man quoting the popular cult media from his youth. But it means so much more than that.

Cause here’s the thing about that iconic line from the end of the movie: you’ll find screeds and screeds of people talking about how he’s using it to flirt with her once last time and just how suave it is, alluding that it’s purely about her youth and beauty and his ever lasting love for her even though she’s married to someone else.

But that line? Had been in use for a good 50+ years prior to Casablanca gracing the screens. It’s a toast, a wish for your health. And the people watching would have known the significance of it, particularly the displaced Europeans knowing that they’ll likely never see their loved ones again.

Cause here’s looking at you kid– and the unspoken meaning behind it– one last time.

Rick isn’t just letting go of the love of his life in that scene. He’s using his position of power and privilege as an American with access to outside networks (predominantly crime related, but hey) to help her escape the country with her highly persecuted and sought after husband to a place of safety.

He had the option to just take her himself and run– and her husband even urges him to do so at one point. But Rick endeavors to get them both to safety, and he shows up armed to do so. He fights for their freedom even though he doesn’t have to. He goes from staunchly refusing to help them out of bitterness and cynicism, to realizing that if he doesn’t do something people are going to die. And he doesn’t just save the woman he loves, which would be oh so easy. He saves the man he hates too. Because he can, so he must.

The final scene ends with Renault (played by Claude Rains, an Englishman), head of the local police (and a character largely played for laughs), making the decision not to arrest Rick or anyone else involved when ordered to, actively defying the orders of a fascist. When he and Rick are walking away, he insinuates that he and Rick should join the French Resistance movement in Brazzaville, and Rick again delivers the other iconic line from the movie: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Casablanca is about forging alliances in the face of tyranny. It’s about doing what is right, even though it goes against the law when the law is corrupt. It’s about being willing to give up your own liberties and comfort to preserve the things you love, even though it won’t directly benefit you. Hell, it might even kill you. But someone’s got to do it.

And yea, it’s old, it’s dated and a product of it’s time and it shows. There are times when the modern viewer will cringe and rightly so. But it was also incredibly out there for its time, when the world was going to absolute hell in a hand basket and it seemed like the walls were closing in, it held many important messages, but primarily: Resist.

Reminder: Do not buy from Amazon or even open the website on 10 July 2018, in solidarity with the transnational strike.

Amazon workers in Spain have called for a transnational strike because Amazon has been avoiding accountability for its labour rights violations by merely shifting the work (and the human rights abuses Amazon inflicts on their workers) to non-striking countries, each time a strike occurs. If there is widespread striking transnationally, Amazon will have no choice but to recognize the strikers’ demands in order to keep their facilities functioning.

Please do not shop on Amazon tomorrow.

Please do not stream Amazon music or video tomorrow

Please do not order from sites using Amazon Payments tomorrow.

i’ve been researching it nonstop since friday, and the only way to prevent the law from getting passed is if enough MEPs vote against it. here’s how to contact them. 

abortion is currently 100% illegal in ireland with a penelty of up to 14yrs (rape is 7yrs, if even that) and up to 10 people travel to england to access abortion every single day

if you’re irish, remember go to vote Yes on May 25th. if you’re not irish but have irish friends, remind them to go vote Yes

Polls are open from 7am until 10pm.  If you are working during those hours, employers are legally obligated to allow you time off to vote. Don’t know if you’re registered to vote? https://www.checktheregister.ie Better yet, call your local County Council: http://www.housing.gov.ie/local-government/administration/local-authorities/local-authorities

Vote Yes for Savita.  Vote Yes for Michelle.  Vote Yes for Siobhán.  Vote Yes for Miss X, Miss Y, Miss A, Miss B, Miss C, Miss D, Miss P.  Vote Yes for all the families of TFMR.  

Vote Yes for the women with cancer who are less than 12 weeks pregnant who have to wait to receive chemotherapy, allowing their cancer to progress.

Vote Yes for the women who are brought to court for invoking their right to refuse consent to certain medical procedures while pregnant.

Vote Yes for the 9 women each day who travel to England to receive healthcare Ireland will not provide for them.  

Vote Yes for the 3 women each day who take an illegal abortion pill in Ireland, and do not consult their doctor because they can face up to 14 years in prison for having taken said pill.

Vote Yes for the couples who terminated their much wanted children with FFAs in England, and who could not bring the remains home for a funeral because of regulations.

Please, Vote Yes.

We cannot legislate for abortion in any case other than threat to life without a Yes vote.  The Attorney General has ruled on this on two separate occasions.  The National Institute for Obstetrics & Gynaecology is endorsing a Yes vote.  81% of Irish Obstetricians endorse a Yes vote.

We are not voting on any law for abortion, or any specific regulations thereof.  We are voting on whether to replace Article 40.3.3 with the following text:  Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancies.

Nowhere else in our constitution do we explicitly make something a criminal act, and then explicitly protect the right to be informed about how to perform that act in other jurisdictions, and explicitly protect the right to travel to another jurisdiction to carry out that act.

In September 2012 I marched with a poster that said “Abortion saves womens’ lives”.  In November 2012 we learned that Savita Halappanavar was denied an abortion while miscarrying and subsequently passed away.  The government had nearly 29 years to legislate for the circumstances in which abortion was legal under the 8th amendment.  They didn’t do it until after Savita’s death, until after we took to the streets and sat outside the Dáil and demanded ‘Never Again’.  Opponents to Repeal have had 35 years to propose an alternative to the 8th amendment; they never have.

We will not be asked a more “moderate” question.  We will not be asked this question again for another generation, at the very least.

REPEAL THE 8TH

https://www.doesthedogdie.com/

Originally created to list whether or not the animals in movies were harmed, it has expanded to list a number of triggering things like people being cut, jumpscares, strobe effects, vomit, deaths of children, and many more. For some categories it links to:

https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/

which has a similar format to Does the Dog Die but deals with a variety of sexual themes. It even elaborates on some of the checked categories just to let you know how serious or in what way the category is expressed in the movie.

common sense media is a generalized and well updated site that gives content warning as a guide to parents, but is also relevant and very helpful if youre looking for your own uses

also all IMDB movie pages have a ‘parents guide’ section that is extremely thorough and gives a description of all potentially disturbing scenes grouped by sex, violence, drugs/alcohol, etc