The Kestrel's Roost

[rejectingrepublicans]

[antlered-vixen]

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

[birdofcauthon14]

So it's been a long time and like two blogs since the last time I liveblogged wrestling, so here you go! Back in the game with this one:

Grande II vs. Grande I is automatically in my top five matches of all time, with a bullet. Kaiser and Gable casually had literally the best match of either of their careers and outshone 95% of WrestleMania 42 after making a genuinely beautiful story out of carny WWE bullshit.

All-timer. Five stars and it's not even close.

[imjunebitch]

anyway if u watch the new Harry Potter show in any way for any reason you're part of the problem. if you pirate it you're part of the problem, if you "watch it critically" you're part of the problem, if you watch it for the purpose of a smug little video essay pointing out some problematic element in it, you're part of the problem. it doesn't matter if some element of the show is problematic, the show existing is problematic. don't give it any revenue or contribute to its cultural relevance. boycott it and let it wither on the fucking vine

[welcometothehole]

this trend of shitting on peer-reviewed academic studies in favor of tweeting “we already knew this was happening” is so soul-crushing. not to be an elitist cunt, but we have got to open the schools again. people genuinely seem to have forgotten that their personal lived experience isn’t indicative of the larger population, AND IF IT IS…… then you need researchers to support these assertions from a relevant data pool instead of a blog post from 2013 💀

[json-derulo]

I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than most—entirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup

[porterdavis]

[ahopefulsun]

Wishing all of you a very merry "I suddenly have the motivation and time to write a minimum 10k fic"... please

[festival-of-pudding]

[lemonsharks]

Like to charge reblog to cast

[eemamminy-art]

Ko-fi sketch reward for @birdofcauthon14! Another OC, this time she's a ranger called Ileanka! :3

[natasha-lightwood]

happy pitt thursday godspeed to everyone

[duckdotcom]

would you put a discarded fruit sticker on my forehead in whimsical jest yes or no

[finleycannotdraw]

reblog to put a discarded fruit sticker on the forehead of the person you reblogged from in whimsical jest

[doubleca5t]

Listen, fellow trans women, I love you all, but if you think that trans men or transmascs are an oppressor class you need to log the fuck off because you are being brainpoisoned by discourse-mongers. That is a legitimately rocks for brains take

[doubleca5t]

There is a HUUUUUGE gap between "transfems experience a unique intersection of oppressions which are not experienced by transmascs", which is true, "some passing trans men benefit from male privilege", which is true, "trans people are not immune to transphobic rhetoric and this can sometimes take the form of transmascs engaging in transmisogyny", which is true, and "transmascs should be treated as equivalent to cis men because trans men are men and therefore as men they are a danger to trans women" like do you see where the gigantic leap of logic comes in here?

[doubleca5t]

There is something personally offensive to me about accounts that go out of their way to post about transmascs being dangerous or untrustworthy or transmisogynistic when the primary danger to trans women right now is the goddamn United States government. Like we've got people in the white house who would outlaw all HRT if given the opportunity and you're gonna post about trans men?? I don't even mean this in a "we have bigger fish to fry" sort of way I mean this is the sense that building solidarity is one of the most important things you can do when faced with a hostile government and society. It's not just that the claims being made are bullshit and transphobic it's that the whole thing feels actively self-destructive toward creating any kind of community that's of any use to anyone

[our-queer-experience]

i’m sure you guys have heard about kansas invalidating trans ids- just so you know it’s not all hopeless

[our-queer-experience]

hi did you know that trans christians spend their entire lives in faiths that try and convince them that on a cosmical level they should hate themselves and for them this would be emotionally fufilling? hi did you know that kansas is over 70% christian? hi did you know that just because you think atheism is the correct and the only thing that deserves respect that doesn’t mean that this isn’t incredibly impactful and meaningful for many people?

[donniehaspronouns]

reblogging this again to bring up that when my grandma said she didn’t understand trans people, and why would they betray the body God gave them, it would have been 0 help to explain to her all the biological and cultural and societal components to the existence of the concept of gender and trans people. You know what did make her pause and reconsider her stance? “Did you ever think that maybe God made trans people on purpose?” And we got to have a conversation about all the interesting things God has made so why wouldn’t God make trans people? And she came out of the conversation with more grace and understanding.

[birdofcauthon14]

Hi, nonbinary atheist here, just adding to the very good discourse in case anyone needs to see it:

Atheism does not make you any less of an unpleasant, unwelcome cunt.

[deadgenerations]

gonna be completely honest and a bit harsh, I think responding to "giving boys positive male role models and teaching them that men who treat women well are the pinnacle of manhood can help reduce misogyny and violence against women" with "why don't we just eliminate the gender binary though" is stupid as fuck and very discoursebrained.

imagine if I said "we need to create and support programs to provide children with accessible and free high protein/nutrition meals" and you responded with "why don't we just eliminate poverty/capitalism though".

the world isn't full of hypotheticals and ideal moral positions one can hold, it's also full of serious practical problems with immediate and bodily consequences, and mitigating solutions which can be implemented on <5 year timescales...

[glitchfang]

there should be a term for characters you personally don't care about but you defend them anyways because the way people treat them is really uncomfortable. like ok this is a very middle-of-the-road character for me but the fandom's either been super misogynistic, racist, etc. about them or harassed innocent people who try to genuinely explore that character warts and all, and i find that more annoying than the actual character.

[androgynousmoonboy]

the term should by 'my client', like you're a lawyer defending your client that you are completely indifferent to but you are obligated by your job (or your morals) to defend

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

"All religions are cults if you think about it"

Actually they're not all cults and you're doing the work of making sure actual cults can slip under the radar when you say stuff like that

Cult leaders LOVE that trend, because they can point to it and say, "people will call anything a cult, it's basically meaningless"

I'm begging you all to stop using the word cult until you really understand what it means

[nepofledgling]

no one has to agree with using fur or leather products I’m not saying everyone has to wear it or that it’s not good to criticize the fur industry but if you’re gonna talk about indigenous peoples food and clothes at all you need to watch your mouth and be real fucking careful what language you use lmfao