1. I have been watching Tumblr fandom turn "Which Russian propaganda did you fall for, and why?" into the latest meme, and it's fascinating, and I can't tell if watching fandom take the Russian propaganda and process it back into tumblr content is cheering or terrifying (maybe both?) And it's interesting to think about how Tumblr is basically tailor-made for that kind of propaganda spreading, for good or evil.

Anyway I did the thing, and it looks like I reblogged only two posts from the IRA accounts, both to the "photorefs in case I ever actually do art" sideblog, both from the thingstolovefor account, both of them sets of art portraits. I can't really tell what they were going for with them - they are both sets of people of many skin colors with a very grim mood, so maybe they were going for overall grimness? Most of the popular posts to that account seem to be, typical for these accounts, part reposts of people being angry about race, part reposts of pro-Bernie Sanders fake news.

I didn't talk about anything political much on my tumblr, and when I think about those posts as I saw them crossing my dash, I don't think they did anything to change my mind about politics, but what they did was reinforce the impression that Tumblr was not a safe place for me to talk about those topics, and I think the extent to which that was the point is being underemphasized - the people who don't like that style of rhetoric silence themselves. (That's the main thing I regret about what I personally did going in to the 2016 election: I let myself be shut up. I think a lot of people who were closer to mainstream Democrats did that, and the result was that POV completely slipped out of the conversation. Which was, of course, no a good result.)

2. con_txt is still looking for panel ideas! Are you going to con.txt? con.txt is a small, friendly, fan-run, slash-and-adjacent-fandom convention in the DC area. Do you want to go to con.txt? Do you want to go to con.txt but don't have the money or are afraid nobody would talk to you (if so, see me in PMs.)

You should submit a panel idea! It doesn't have to be polished and it doesn't have to be something you would run, just something you would in interested in talking about with other fans in person. I did my traditional "well, nobody else has submitted any, so I will put in a ridiculous number" thing, so now I need all y'all to go add a bunch too, because nobody wants a con where most of the panels are based on what I submitted. :(

Particularly they seem low this year on panels about specific fandoms and/or pairings, are you super excited about a specific large fandom right now? If you are going to con-txt you should go submit a panel for it!

3. intoabar is running again! The fest where you pick a character and three fandoms, the mod picks a character from one of the fandoms at random, and they have to meet! Best fest.