   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
Tomorrow, April 1st 2025, we have a massively important State Supreme Court election here in the state of Wisconsin. It will decide the balance of the state supreme court, and it's vitally important that we get Susan Crawford elected. Elon Musk has literally poured millions of dollars into Brad Schimel's campaign, and we are fighting for our lives here. I've already voted, and if you haven't yet and you live here... make sure you do.
But no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what the result is, the fight is far from over. ICE agents are grabbing people off the streets, our public institutions are being systematically destroyed, and our international and diplomatic relations with historically close allies are just, honestly, fucked right now. Today is Trans Day of Visibility, and trans and queer rights have been under steady attack by the right. As a nonbinary person and member of the trans community, I'm genuinely scared for a lot of my friends right now.
But we fight. We stand up. We survive.
If we accept defeat, we are handing victory to those who want us dead. By living and fighting, we carry on to the next day and then the day after that. I know I posted it right after the election last November, but there's a pretty famous Joe Hill quote everyone should keep in mind: "Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"
Go out, hug your friends. Build a local community if you can, and get involved in your local politics. Make sure you call your Reps and Senators every day if you can, and for pete's sake fucking vote.
We can make it as long as we don't stop fighting.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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Welcome to the cesspit where I live called Florida. It’s not as bad as it once was, but there was a point in time where this was the norm.
That poor man…
Once you’ve got your foot in your mouth, you should at least try not to chew…
Yeah, we get this all the time. NYC anime fans despise crossing into NJ for a con even though it’s nigh-impossible to run a mid-sized con in NYC due to costs. Trust me, we’ve checked.
I believe t’s called a “rack focus,” Mark.
What’s a real con? I mean what defines a Fake con from a Real con?
same criteria as gamer girls?
Same criteria as real cheese?
‘Is he personally involved with running it, and take pride in doing so?’ Anything less, not a ‘Real’ Con.
Are he and his staff going to turn out to be from Chicago?
*whistles whle looking off to the side*
You daffy bastard!
That’d be like people from Minnesota and Illinois running a con in Iowa! 🙂
@Berhard, Not quite as crazy as it sounds. Well, maybe it would be, for Milwaukee proper. Congenial (a Racine-area relaxacon) was started by Milwaukee fen and then taken over (relatively amicably as such things go) by Chicago fen who were heartily tired of the existing Chicago con scene. Not sure if it’s still operating, haven’t heard any references to it in a while. The “not a real con” comment was used non-ironically in the 80’s and 90’s to refer to any “media” (television-series- or movie-oriented) convention, because (as the gatekeepers held) “real fans read books”. Book books, not comic books. Comic cons, such as existed then, were more like flea markets or swap meets. Really boring if you weren’t really into it. “Real” cons were not-for-profit, had an art show, a hospitality suite, a masquerade for the costumers, discussion panels, and catered to a broad spectrum of interests….if your interests were literary, that is, because the GoH’s were authors and artists. Now it seems that you have to be a big glitzy (read: expensive) for-profit event with Big Name guests to be “real”…