Woke up this morning to the drama unfolding between ariaste and scottlynch78.
While I can’t say much about the character or personality of scott, I have many things about ari. I read through their account of everything, and while I really don’t want to “not believe the victim,” I believe there’s a lot more going on than the picture they’re painting. Honestly I think both parties are probably in the wrong and there was a whole miscommunication jumble toward feelings and intentions.
But I just wanted to scream my small opinion on the matter into the void.
So when I first joined this hell site back in 2011, I was looking for blogs that had similar interests and found the gentleman bastard fandom. In the beginning, we would all kind of post and reblog of course the same content and yadda yadda. At some point, Ari kinda became the figurehead of the whole fandom, finding new members, connecting everyone, coming up with content ideas, etc. at some point the chat was started (I think they also started that) p cool to be able to connect with so many people around the world that loved these books.
Anyway, that’s kind of where I first met Ari. I can’t remember if it was through tumblrs shitty messaging system or private messages on the chat, but we discussed my interest in LARPing and SCA. I told them where I was from and apparently they had an ex that was in the same LARP or SCA Region and they told me I should go give him a good beating and tell him they send their regards (which at the time was a little weird, but I kind of considered them a friend, so I brushed it off and we laughed about it. In hindsight, I’m wondering if this guy was as terrible as they made him seem).
The fandom went on and expanded to where a website was created. And things were good for a while. Then there was some event that happened in the fandom that they were vague blogging about and wouldn’t tell anyone what was going on. I privately messaged them and said ‘hey I don’t know what happened, but I just want you to know I’m here for you. Sending internet hugs’ and they put me on blast for “trying to get the good gossip”. That’s when I lost all respect for them.
I think there was an incident as well where they had dated another fandom member and things went sour—but I don’t know many details there.
Since then they’ve been publishing books and living life.
So seeing the account from them puts a lot of serious doubt in my mind as to what was really going on. Like, if it was any other member of the fandom saying this, I wouldn’t have this doubt. In my personal experience, Ari wants to be in control of everything, and shoots you down if you get in their way. And they’ve got another book on the way.
I feel like this is pretty important to realize: the cops are becoming exhausted, and there’s a limited supply of them. NYPD has every cop on duty working full days every day. We have an unlimited capacity to rotate in fresh fighters that they simply do not have. We can take shifts. They can’t.
This is also why we’re starting to see bare minimum concessions now. The powers that be have realized they’ve made a grave miscalculation. A week into it, and ideas that seemed utterly impossible even a month ago are on the table- LA is talking about a hundred and fifty million dollar budget cut for the LAPD, every cop directly involved in George Floyd’s murder has been arrested and Chauvin’s charge has been raised to second degree murder, parts of the Minneapolis city council is pushing to permanently disband the Minneapolis police department.
What could we win with two weeks? Three? An organized general strike that brings the entire economy to a crashing halt? It is difficult to feel hopeful in such brutal times, but there is profound hope to be had in the realization that a week of getting our asses kicked has advanced the mainstream narrative around police so much further than electoralism would’ve dared to dream in 100 years.
I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER SEEN AMERICA THIS UNITED BEHIND A CAUSE THE AMOUNT OF SUPPORT FOR THE PROTESTORS AND DISTAIN FOR THE POLICE IS STAGGERING
EVEN IF THE FLAMES DIE DOWN AND THE COPS FORCE PEOPLE BACK INTO THEIR HOMES UNDERSTAND THAT IN THEIR DESPERATE EFFORT TO CLING TO THEIR POWER THEY HAVE ONLY SUCCEEDED IN RADICALIZING AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF AMERICANS AGAINST THEM
WITH THEIR ACTIONS DURING THESE PROTESTS THE POLICE HAVE SINGLE-HANDEDLY DESTROYED ANY REMAINING TRUST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAD IN THEM
THE ILLUSION IS SHATTERED
ALL THE SOCIAL POINTS THEY GAINED IN THE WAKE OF 9/11 HAVE BEEN SPENT AND AMERICANS NOW SEE THEM FOR THE BASTARDS THE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN
THERE ARE KARENS ARE SAYING ACAB NOW THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE AMERICAN POLICE SYSTEM AS WE KNOW IT
THE MEDIA NARRATIVE IS TURNING RAPIDLY MORE IN FAVOR OF THE RIOTERS
COPS ARE VISIBLY LOSING BRAVADO
WE ARE WINNING
DAMN NEAR ALL PRO-COP PROPAGANDA IS BEING DROWNED IN MOCKERY AND SUPPORT FOR BLACK AMERICANS
THE NARRATIVE IS NOW FIRMLY IN OUR CONTROL
THE SHEER NUMBERS OF THE PROTESTS ARE BEGINNING TO DECLINE BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN HAS THEIR EYES AND EARS FIXED ON GOVERNEMNT OFFICIALS
THE BALL IS IN THEIR COURT AND IT IS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT IF THEY FAIL TO SERVE JUSTICE THEIR CITIES WILL BURN
Not just that police brutality is an issue. Not just that protesting it is warranted. Not just a general agreement in BLM’s goals. A majority of Americans believe that capturing and burning down a police precinct building was a justified action
The narrative has permanently shifted. We are definitely winning
Rioters set fire to a house with children in it & tried to stop the firefighters from putting out the fire. Rioters burned down low-income housing and post offices, depriving poor and disabled people of resources.
Rioters burned down innocent people’s businesses, depriving those people’s children of food on the table. Rioters have murdered multiple innocent people. They even murdered a dog and a horse.
People like you, who fuel the flames of these riots, are complicit and responsible for every single one of these crimes.
HOWDY OFFICER FEEL FREE TO TELL US THE CITY AND DAY THIS HAPPENED
Every day you stupid bitch
ANTIFA PAINTED A REALISTIC TUNNEL ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN CAUSING ME TO RUN FACEFIRST INTO IT AT HIGH SPEED DESPITE THE FACT THAT ANTIFA WAS ABLE TO RUN THROUGH IT
I CANT BELIEVE ANTIFA BURNS DOWN A HOME FULL OF CHILDREN AND POOR PEOPLE AND MURDERS A DOG AND HORSE EVERY SINGLE DAY
FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD PUNK ASS ARCHIVIST HERE WITH A MESSAGE
if you cannot protest or donate, and you’ve been retweeting and reblogging your ass off, here’s another thing you can do from home to help out later on down the line.
we are dealing with a fascist police state. fascists love nothing more than controlling the media and taking away primary sources of their evildoing, so lets take some steps toward taking that power away from them.
the wayback machine is a tool from the internet archive, a nonprofit website that seeks to capture websites as they change over time. the wayback machine is free to use and will be able to help protect all of the first-person accounts of the crimes being committed by the state during these protests for human rights.
this is what the homescreen of the wayback machine looks like:
that blue circle is where you put a permalink to a tweet you want to add to the wayback machine
that red circle is how you find the permalink to a tweet. click “copy link to tweet” and put it in the blue circle above, and there you have it! save what you see. don’t let anyone take away all of the documentation of these crimes the state has committed and declare it fake news.
fuck the cops. fuck orange mussolini. fuck racists, and fuck fascist government regimes.
dont forget: there’s nothing more punk than voting, libraries, and loving each other.
the fact that there’s an 8 fucking pm curfew in new york is so unfathomably insane to me. like, a city of 8 million or whatever all has to go home when the sun is barely down because cops are that addicted to upholding white supremacy? i was out and some cop drove by and said thru his loudspeaker “go home! what are you still doing out!” what are you doing driving around in a caravan with your lights on fucking harassing people in the street? get a real fucking job
