#2016 debates

[cometrose]

trump may be a lying felon and biden a foot away from death but my fellow americans don’t forget to vote for your senators and representatives they’re important!!!

[renai-fr]

Perler Bead Flight Flags

Made these flight flag coasters a bit back, figured it was a good time to post 'em! I do enjoy Perlers, they're like pixel art but at the end I can hold them and stuff.

Crafting details after the break, if y'all want to make your own.

These are using the original 2013 flag designs/colors on a 14x14 board, with standard 5mm beads. If you wanted to do the current flag designs, they'd need a little bit of tweaking as many are more symmetric in the current art (and also, I'd recommend a 16x16 size, since then you have room to put the current art's border). You could also try out an odd-sized flag, 15x15 maybe, but the angles at the bottom will look a little off. Doesn't hurt to try stuff though!

I got most of the beads for these out of variety packs and various kits, which don't necessarily label the colors in them, but these are my best guesses to what I used:

Earth: Tan design on Brown base

Fire: Butterscotch/Orange on Light Brown base

Wind: Dark Green on Kiwi Lime

Water: Light Blue on Dark Blue/Cobalt

Lightning: Toothpaste on Parrot Green

Ice: Turquoise on Robin's Egg

Light: Cheddar on Creme

Shadow: Pastel Lavender on Purple

Nature: Kiwi Lime on Dark green

Plague: Red on Cranapple

Arcane: Pink on Raspberry

(Most of these came from the Multi Mix packs or the Neutral Colors/Fun Colors trays, but Cranapple in particular was catankerous to get ahold of. Fitting for Plague, I suppose! Anyways, there's some wiggle room on hue for a lot of these, too, I was just using what I had onhand as much as possible)

As for what I would do differently if I made another set of these? Well... I've gotten a bit better at getting the melt level consistent, so there's that. Learned the hard way that trying to melt two designs on the same pegboard, even if said board is big, isn't a good idea (and it's near-impossible to fix). Also, I was using one of the freebie folded pieces of parchment paper, so some of the coasters have creases... On non-ironing notes, I think it would be fun to take a stab at a micro-bead variant, since they support a higher dpi and all!

Anyways, if you decide to make your own set, please uh... I'd say ping me, but I'm not actually sure how that works here? I think it'd be cool to see 'em, that's all. Happy crafting!

[hereslookingatyousquid]

SHE'S BEING SO MEAN TO HIM I LOVE THISSSS I THINK I COULD LIFT A CARRRR

[lygma-nygma]

Congrats to Ace the Bat-hound for coming out as trans

Bonus: Bruce being a horrible child on Christmas

[glittter-vamp]

Looooooord this man and fucking china, my goodness.

[lumoss-noxx]

do you think he was wearing his jorts here

[jacksprostate]

op i would like you to know that your fixed version of fight club the novel got me through my ib extended essay. i did not have my own copy with me at the time of writing and only after a brief panic did i remember your holy contribution. often i would trail off into reading it out loud in the middle of trying to find a passage. sadly the word count made me cap it at 4000 words. thank you and godspeed soldier.

LMAO BEEN THERE BESTIE been over half a decade but I did a historical one on the Stonewall Riots. bro you would not BELIEVE how absolutely insane I got when, since the historical EE requires you to extensively consult primary sources (for those not in the know, this means sources created during and right after the event, like newspapers, speeches, etc. I'd also found a monograph from just a year or two afterwards iirc), I went from expecting to confirm the general mythos about Stonewall to being like Oh God Oh God Its All A Lie!!!!!!!!!1!1! Its All A LIE!!!!!!!!! <- baby's first realization that political groups, even ones you belong to, will use historical revisonism extensively and with extremely questionable morals, and crack down on anyone who acknowledges it

seriously so funny to me that a sort of joke ee thesis ended up being a Defining Life Experience

I can absolutely imagine how much it'd help to have your book be ctrl-f-able, glad I could help out there. Godspeed soldier, may you gain all the college credits

[nappingpaperclip]

we can literally all go throw our votes at Kamala & she can win the popular vote and trump can still 100% legally be elected president just like in 2016 due to how broken the electoral college system is & y’all still think we have to vote blue to save democracy? is this the democracy we’re saving y’all?

we have to save our country against Trump’s fascism, the same country that’s currently funding and facilitating genocide? how exactly is that not already fascist?

[didnt-hear-cold-as-you-live]

it could’ve been Pete Buttigieg if this country wasn’t homophobic. first gay President would be so cool. and he’s well-spoken. but conservatives would never 😔

I highly highly disagree with this and I feel as though he is unlikeable for similar reasons Hillary was unlikeable (relatively centrist / swings right where he needs to swing left to be populist, and seemingly out of touch with working class struggles), and it has nothing to do with his sexuality

[fanfictrashdump]

If anyone else is watching the debate, I'd like you to know that I, too, am trying to make sense of this goddamn hot mess.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's always tempting to debate bigots about their bigotry, but honestly the best thing you can do is often to directly help those affected by said bigotry.

Bigotry doesn't exist to be debated. People who are bigots do not care about debate - they care about humiliating their opponents. You cannot outsmart somebody who doesn't give a flying fuck about their position being incorrect. You will be playing a completely different game by trying to debate somebody out of their bigotry.

The best thing you can do is to show up for the marginalized. Check in on them, talk to them, and engage with them as people. Ask them if they would like help and then respect their answer to the best of your capabilities. Oftentimes, that will be sufficient enough and will go a long way.

[dionysus-complex]

god not to post a very specific scholarly callout but T.P. Wiseman's writing is insufferable

[derseprinceoftbd]

We're all going to die because the slightly less fascist but more antisemitic and xenophobic economically illiterate old fuck can't fucking make a fucking coherent argument to save all of our lives

Are you hearing this shit.

It should have been Hillary. It should have been Hillary. It should have been Hillary.

It should always have been Hillary.

[paperxcrowns]

i really wanted to have my macgyver fic posted tonight but it's currently midnight and im traveling tomorrow so it's definitely not happening which MEANS. i get to share a snippet of it here for you guys :]

---

Mac purposefully avoids looking at his reflection, quickly turning his back to the small mirror hanging over the sink as he changes into the new clothes. He stumbles and almost falls over several times, unsteady on his feet and still working through the dizziness. He’s out of breath by the time he’s done, leaning heavily against the bathroom wall.

He stares at his hands again, covered in small cuts and dried mud. Mud from the grave he just crawled out of.

His breathing stutters in his chest. Mac pushes off the wall.

Still ignoring his reflection, he turns on the tap. He winces when he shoves his hands under the icy spray, uncaring about the temperature.

He doesn’t care. He just needs to get it off. He grabs a towel and starts scrubbing harshly. The water slowly becomes lukewarm, more bearable for his reddened fingers.

Mac pays it no mind. He stares at the brown water swirling in the drain.

He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until his skin is pink, until the cuts caked in mud and grime are clean and bleeding again. The water turns from brown to pinkish. Mac’s hands are shaking again. The tremors run up his arms and he blinks through the tears blurring his vision.

It’s not enough.

Mac scrubs trying to get rid of the damned mud.

A sob catches in his throat when it just won’t come free.

It’s under his shredded fingernails. It hurts to scrub at them, but Mac doesn’t care about that.

The mud clings to him. To his clothes, to his skin, to his hair. Everywhere. It won’t come out. Mac can’t get it out.

His chest hitches. The tears burn hot in his eyes and a few escape when he blinks.

The skin of his hands is irritated and raw from so long under the water. The waterlogged towel is stained with blood and mud. Mac drops it like it burned him.

He finally looks up and meets his eyes in his reflection. He barely recognizes the face in front of him.

His face is pale and streaked with flaking dirt. His hair is tangled and nearly black with dried mud, the bright bathroom light glinting off the few blond strands that peek through. The eyes that stare back are blown wide, pupils dilated. They’re rimmed with red and shadowed purple, making them look slightly sunken and giving Mac a haunted appearance.

[klanced]

mx katie klanced are we voting voltron straight through in the worst fandom poll or genshin. your troops await

i am so sad i missed this poll. i am now going to hold you all hostage and force you to read my outrage. i know this ship sailed literally two weeks ago but LISTEN TO ME!!!!!

anyway i cannot BELIEVE that voltron lost to south park. the category was "most annoying fandom." this is distinctly different than "most annoying show" or "worst show," and it is NOT synonymous with "most unhinged fans." okay? for this poll, what matters is the group character and cultural staying power of the fandom that organized around the show.

an annoying fandom must be:

incredibly vocal and prominent, to the point that even the most reluctant and detached layperson still has some vague idea of the fandom's biggest discourse/fights, usually entirely against their will; and

annoying, in the sense that the fandom's presence (or even a mere reference to their presence) is enough to actively disrupt or impede one's ability to enjoy online internet spaces; and

the fandom is annoying BECAUSE of the source material in question.

point 1 is fairly subjective, as it's all based on one's own experience or perception of a show's cultural diffusion across the broader public consciousness. so i weigh it less heavily when ranking how annoying a show is.

for point 2 i would argue that south park is annoying, and south park fans are annoying, but the south park fandom itself is NOT as annoying (i.e., the fandom is the least annoying aspect of south park). this is because i firmly believe you can differentiate between south park fans versus the south park fandom.

[[actually if i can be frank -- does south park actually have an organized fandom? obviously they have fans, i have seen them in the twitter wilds (usually in the context of out-of-context incredibly well-developed yaoi art/content of? 10 year olds ?????????). but is there actually a cohesive fandom that routinely interacts and develops concepts together? is there a collective identity ??????? my gut reaction is no, but this is very much an online space i don't enter, so what do i know? i also have no idea what that fandom can even talk about, other than the yaoi (although you could easily say this to the voltron fandom as well). whatever, for this argument i will presuppose that there IS a organized south park fandom with a fairly coherent and cohesive identity.]]

anyway, what i wanted to highlight is that there are certainly incredibly annoying individual south park fans who are outrageous, vulgar, and vile. so you would think that, if you put all these annoying individuals into a single collective, that single group would have skyrocketing amounts of annoyingness. but that doesn't seem to happen. i cannot recall any specific complaints about the south park fandom; personal stories involving individual south park fans, sure, but what does the fandom actually do on a broad scale?? if there is any sort of discourse or mobilization, it seems to be fairly contained and localized.

so how can a collective fandom somehow be less annoying than its individual parts? this brings me to point three: an annoying fandom MUST be annoying BECAUSE of its source material. and this does not apply in the south park fandom's case.

to qualify as an annoying fandom, it is not enough to be a group of annoying fans loosely connected by a shared interest; rather, the source material ITSELF must be the inciting incident that galvanizes the group to organize and THEN become annoying.

is the south park fandom annoying? to some extent yes, of course. but i would argue that the south park fandom is annoying, not specifically because of the show in question, but rather because the fandom is comprised of persons who were already predisposed to being annoying, regardless of whether or not they had ever watched south park. this is a subtle but incredibly important distinction.

south park's vulgar and vile humor certainly enables its most annoying fans, but the continued annoying activities of said fans are NOT dependent on the show's existence. a shithead south park fan was always going to be a shithead, now they just have cartman to idolize.

i have spent a lot of time talking about south park. let us now move on to voltron and the voltron fandom.

in contrast to south park, the voltron fandom qualifies as an annoying fandom because its annoying activities were entirely dependent on the existence of voltron the show. would individual voltron fans still have been annoying even if they had never stumbled upon voltron? of course. but the voltron fandom was an organized collective of people that specifically came together to BE ANNOYING ABOUT VOLTRON. and then they made it everyone else's problem.

the voltron fandom was like an ouroboros devouring its own tail; a symbol of infinity, referencing the literally never-ending fighting; and it survived entirely by maiming and cannibalizing itself. the voltron fandom actively ruined every online space it entered. i saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by voltron.

honestly, i would argue that the voltron fandom's impact has completely altered the way online fandom functions to this day. the voltron fandom capitalized on the momentum started by the steven universe fandom and other early 2010s online fandoms, and spawned an entire new flavor of fandom discourse that was obsessed with morality and virtue. truthfully, it feels disingenuous to frame what happened as something innocuous as "fandom discourse"; it almost feels like a disservice to the levels of personal faith, passion, and vitriol people poured into voltron. the terms "pro-shipping" and "anti-shipping" have been around for ages, but the voltron fandom turned "pro" and "anti" into genuine identity markers.

this post is already way too insane so i need to quit while i'm ahead. but i would just like to conclude by reiterating that south park has annoying fans but not necessarily an annoying fandom, whereas the voltron fandom was annoying specifically BECAUSE it was the voltron fandom. i think the south park fandom could dissolve tomorrow and assimilate into other similar fandoms without a problem. whereas the voltron fandom was like lightning in a bottle; the activities of the voltron fandom are quintessentially wrapped up in the specific details, characteristics, and attributes of voltron. if voltron's characters or story was even slightly different -- if, say, every character was a college-student for example -- then the nature and activities of the fandom would have been irrevocably different.

and that is why voltron is the more annoying fandom and SHOULD HAVE SWEPT SOUTH PARK IN THE POLL.

[emleighbee]

The beef between Philinda shippers and Fitzsimmons shippers will never not be funny to me.

"My ship is the most important to the show!"

"No MY ship is the most important!"

How about both of you just go sit down and have a Capri Sun. Eat a snack. Write some fanfic. I promise the world won't end if someone thinks the ship you like isn't the best one.