#Where's that one ''Yes it is me. I am The Literal Strawman you asked for'' screenshot when you need it

[genderqueerdykes]

i think that certain parts of the community are starting to become more and more exclusionist. like im starting to see a lot more pro-lesboy spaces say "lesboy doesnt mean trans man/cis man! full men cant be lesboys!" or pro-mspec monospec spaces say "mspec monospec doesnt mean being both things for the same attraction! it means being mspec for sex/romance and monospec for the other!! no one is a romantic mspec AND monospec at the same time!" or just. Things like that.

i did not see this ask until now and am i glad you sent it

short answer: yes, agreed, it's petty queer infighting that doesn't need to be happening

so from what i've noticed is most of online queer discourse really at the end of the day is about what an individual person thinks that queer label isn't, and not what it is. people are very nihilistic right now, and really love to take everything in bad faith. we're seeing a rash of reactionary content in general where people take their knee jerk reaction as their stance on an entire complex concept that requires time to digest and process. like literally the most farfetched dogshit take you've ever seen because they just found out about a concept and bullshitted and answer.

certain people wanna think they're experts on queerness overnight because they just realized they're [xyz] or whatever other reason they want to be the expert on queerness. really what it is is people who want to tell other people what it is, but not listen. like it really just is people who want to say "this is how queerness works. shut up because i'm the only one who knows why. don't ask me for a reason". like it's about control. it's about people who have never done any research into queer history in any country on any continent, has not interacted with their local queer community who still want to have a captive audience about what queerness "really is". so instead of learning history and talking to other people they tell you how they feel and spin it as the truth.

other people just send the most bizarre angry posts, asks, DMs, whatever, about how they hate this 1 really specific kind of person that they've never actually met, but hypothetically they would hate. it's mind games. people get caught up in their own thoughts long enough to believe the hypothetical guy they made up isn't real. it's the strawman argument. i don't know what compels humans to do this but for whatever reason, people really love making up a fictional guy to get offended at. it's really bizarre. if cishet men wanted to identify as lesbians, they would literally already be doing it

if you know what logical fallacies are to some extend and have been around internet discussions in general for a long time, you start to recognize the patterns. it's a type of entitled attitude that leads a person to not be in a community for very long. it's a certain kind of person who gets a rise out of being a jackass. like i've tried to word that better. no. that's what it is. like people are aware of the fact that they're being a jackass and continue to do it anyway. people are getting a kick out of this. like. people are chasing the rush you get from fucking with someone. that's all it is. when people say "how can they be so cruel?" they're chasing a mental high that fades extremely quickly, so they have to keep doing it over, and over, and over.

it's like how do i put it. now that social media is so widespread, just about everyone has one on at least a few platforms at this point. people are being exposed to these conversations. and you're gonna have some complete noobs who come in thinking they can define lesbianism because they realized they were a lesbian yesterday and it's like. people will keep fighting the same tired old argument about how trans men can't be lesbians for the 9439030985th time and meanwhile they're ignoring the 50 trans male dykes interacting with one of their mutuals like i think it's literally dumb as hell that there are people on this website mentally abusing strangers on the internet because they refuse to crack open a book, read a zine or open a pdf and read the biographies of real world trans male lesbians, or even just read an article about one. like it's easier and more fun for them to pretend it's not happening it's wild as hell to me

anyway, yes. it's really stupid. people are getting caught up in all the wrong parts of what separates identities. it's the compulsion to draw lines in the sand that is forced upon us in our binary obsessed society. it is likely tied to black and white thinking, and catastrophizing, which both can happen when someone is stressed and looking at a situation in a maladaptive way, either due to perspective or neurotype. sometimes this legitimately can be due to someone's mental health, so it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation for why people get so riled up. those headspaces get you very heated and it's difficult to come down from. it requires a lot of time learning emotional coping skills to walk backwards from those types of episodes

[0poole]

LGBTQABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

 Gee, I hate being the first one to say this, but it’s Pride month. Wow. How could no one be talking about this? Crazy.

Okay but like, it’s impossible to avoid this stuff, and it probably won’t stop till the end of next month, so might as well dish out some thoughts on everything here. Just thoughts, with no agenda behind them. Gotta make that clear because people tend to go ham with stuff otherwise.

First of all, I’m bi, and basically on the edge of being trans as well. Basically, here’s where I am on that spectrum:

I want to become a girl for fetish purposes. Maybe not entirely that, but it’s close enough to say it. Or, you know, maybe just wanting to get fucked by a dude in a different hole is just what every male-to-female transsexual wants? Apart from that, the only thing stopping me from going through with that is the technology. Basically, what they’ll be doing is giving me a vagina, and that’s pretty much it, unless I want to slap some plastic on my face. It’s not satisfying enough, and considering I’m totally okay with being male, It’s extremely not worth it for me. But, if I woke up one day and by chance I had magically turned into a girl overnight, then I am IN THE MONEY. Sounds dope. Why fondle other peoples’ tits when I can fondle my own?

As for bisexual-ism, I’d have to go far as to say that I’m not just ignoring the concept of pansexuality in lieu of something more familiar (even though that’s kinda-sorta also the reason but not really). I’m actually just not attracted to trans people for some reason. I’m obviously okay with it on a moral standpoint, but like... I just don’t feel it. Maybe it’s just something deep in the back of my mind going like “ehhhh.... something ain’t right here.” What’s weird is that I would DIE for futa girls. Maybe I just like dick and also every womanly part. Who knows.

And, if you’re asking yourself, “why’s this guy bringing up his porn tastes all of a sudden?” then literally WHAT DO YOU THINK SEXUALITY IS? Also thank you kind strawman, for letting me tie this into my main point of how I hope all sexuality will eventually become as pointless and irrelevant to a person’s being as their hair color.

Seriously, sexuality is a sex thing. And as far as I understand it, romantic interest is a different field from sexuality? That’s fair. Some people just want to fuck, others don’t want to fuck. Makes sense, but it kind of ties into one thing I hate about this whole movement: everything’s gotta be a title. Every slight iteration from another thing has it’s own entire label to it. How do you expect people to care about your movement if they have to learn a whole new language to understand what’s going on? It’s kinda the same thing with politics. Instead of saying I’m a “democrat” or whatever, all I want to do is tell you what I believe and go from there, no preconceived notions about things other people with the same title did or said or whatever. Instead of being a “aromantic pansexual,” you could just say “Everyone’s on the table, but I’m not much into dating and all that” and suddenly you as a being become a lot more tangible to other people. Obviously there are worse things people are doing for the cause, but even I’m getting annoyed at some of these extremely specific titles people are using. (I was about to type “demisexual” into that stereotypical example, but I looked it up, and it turns out it’s more on the romantic side of things, I guess? Look it up, it’s literally a “””sexuality””” that applies to most of the population, and yet it needs a label too)

And if you want to make things super specific, you know, to clarify that you’re into literally EVERYONE and not just “”everyone,”” then just realize it doesn’t actually matter to anyone who you’re not considering as a significant other. Like I said, sexuality is a sex thing. You wouldn’t want someone going around saying “Man, I really wish someone would tie me to a table and fuck me with a giant horsecock dildo right about now!” because that’s sex stuff, and we keep that on the DL, as the kids say. Although, I’d have to imagine that people bring it up out of the political-ness of it all, since that’s just how things are nowadays. 

And obviously you got the people who make their sexuality a major part of their person. Everyone knows they suck at this point, no need to beat a dead horse.

Here’s another thing I hate: People who make assumptions on a fictional characters sexuality/gender based on their personality. Like, “Oh, she’s a tomboy? Must be a lesbian.” sort of thing. Believe me, I’m a-go on lesbo porn 100%, but actually seriously assuming a character is gay or something just because of their personality? Isn’t that one of the things we’re trying to avoid? Stereotyping? No? Maybe? It’s even worse when people get angry about other people saying they’re something else, but that ties into my next thing:

When someone sees one person saying/doing something stupid on the internet, and assuming that a tangible amount of people actually do stuff like that. There’s probably a term for it. Like, if you see someone on r/Tumblrinaction or whatever going “It’s okay to rape boys but not girls.” a good number of people would instantly assume even a vaguely noticeable number of people believe that, just because they saw a meme of it online. Then, you get an actually tangible number of people getting angry about the original thing, even though, proportionally speaking, so many more people are angry about it then there are people actually saying/doing the thing. 

Where does it apply here? Well, last I checked there’s like 90K tweets about a so-called “Straight Pride Parade” going on somewhere on planet Earth. Checked the tab, everyone’s exclusively complaining about the concept. No actual news, only people reacting to other people reacting to other people reacting, etc. No, actually, guess what, here’s the news, from good ol’ Twitter Moments themselves: “THREE men in Boston...” THREE. It’s literally a tiny friend group of mindless white guys going “Hey, we should have a pride parade too!” and suddenly the entire internet folds upon them. And now, guess what? Now all the worse straight guys know about it, and feel vindicated to advocate for it, so guess what? You played yoselves.

But, there’s the tie-in to the next thought: What about these “Straight Pride,” “It’s okay to be White,” “It’s okay to be Male” types? You know, people at the top of the charts trying to start the same movements as the people below them. To be honest, I really don’t think these people are worth getting so goddamn uppity about. I mean, assholes aren’t worth getting uppity about in any case, but specifically in this case. The thing about those ideas is that they’re “”””””literally””””””” true and fair, but the thing is that that’s not the issue here. Yes, it’s okay to be white, straight, and male, but like... That’s not the discussion. The whole point of what’s going on is people trying to rise up in the rankings. Some idiots on the internet may want to put the top people below them, but as mentioned 2 ideas ago, that’s not the majority. Reasonable people would only want to put the straight, white, male people below them if they, specifically, individually, are being an asshole about everything. Then, that’s about you as a person, not what you are. 

Back to the Straight Pride Parade specifically, aren’t these “pride parades” supposed to exist to make you feel better about your body and whatnot? If some jackasses feel better about themselves, and do so in a fashion that isn’t harmful to other people, then who cares? I’m assuming it’s not in the spirit of things to go to a normal pride parade and be like “FUCK STRAIGHT PEOPLE” so as long as the straight people don’t do the opposite either, who cares? It’s a net increase of happiness in the world. Sure, they haven’t gone through as many hardships throughout history, but should you really need to go through hardship to get together with other people to feel better about themselves? I hope the answer is no. You know, just because the idea I mentioned 3 ideas ago is bullshit doesn’t mean it doesn’t actually affect people.

Frankly, why can’t we just have a Sexuality Pride Parade, where literally everyone, no matter what, can join in? If unity’s the goal, why not actually be all-inclusive? I mean, like I said, I want to live my life around the idea that sexuality/gender matters as much to any random person as their hair color, but until that becomes the norm at least try and make it fit for everyone to join in. You can’t exactly fix anything if you just keep it all to the people who’d support you anyway because they’re in the same boat. 

Oh and expect me to gush about Pokemon tomorrow, because I most certainly will.

[automatismoateo]

I Am Once Again Asking Christians to Stop Defending Biblical Slavery via /r/atheism

I Am Once Again Asking Christians to Stop Defending Biblical Slavery

Believe it or not websites like Twitter and TikTok have a serious problem with Christian slavery apologists. Yes, you read that, Christian slavery apologists. And I say "Christian" because I almost never see Jews doing this bullshit. Prior to getting on TikTok and the more religious discussion side of Twitter I had no idea that slavery apologetics was even a thing in modern times. I'm sure there will be exchristians in this sub who will be saying "well, duh, those people exist," however, I ask that you show me grace here because I am a lifelong atheist and I was not raised as a Christian and through the course of my life virtually none of the Christians I met, including the more conservative ones, ever tried to defend slavery as far as I know. And before this discussion goes any farther if you defend slavery I will automatically assume you are racist.

To give you an example of what I'm talking about, several months ago Dr. Joshu Bowen, known as Dr. Josh, posted a Twitter thread explaining why everybody should stop defending the slavery of the Bible. And for those who don't know Dr. Josh is a Hebrew bible scholar and has written a whole ass book on slavery in the Hebrew Bible and he runs the Digital Hammurabi YouTube channel with his wife Megan Lewis who is also a scholar. And in case you're worried Dr. Josh is just atheist who just hates Christians, Megan's a Christian. The point is the man knows his shit. The crux of his argument in the Twitter thread is given how similar slavery in the Bible is to American slavery by defending biblical slavery you are also defending the enslavement of Black people.

But of course the evangelical Christians did not like this and the immediately came out of the woodwork with all the apologetics, strawmans, red herrings, and "well, actuallys" to defend slavery in the Bible. In fact, there was one guy in that Twitter thread who responded by saying slavery wasn't inherently bad. What the actual fuck? Last time I checked, owning literal human beings as property is fucking insidious.

And this is the same problem on apps like TikTok because if you go to the search bar and type in "bible slavery" or something similar you see so many videos of Christians, not Jews, but Christians, defending biblical slavery. And these don't have 25 views and 3 likes, but thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of views with hundreds and thousands of likes. This is not just a small problem of a few creators it is thousands of Christian accounts defending biblical slavery.

I think I should also take some time in this post to debunk the arguments these people make. And I'm debunking these to arguments to convince the Christians or to convince you, but so that people who have no knowledge of what biblical slavery is like will not be swayed by Christian apologetics and so that you can make it clear to everyone where you stand on the issue and not let this go unchallenged.

Lets start with the idea that the Bible doesn't endorse chattel slavery because it instead endorses indentured servitude, also known as debt slavery. There are a few problems here. First of all, yes, the absolutely endorses chattel slavery, but more to the point, indentured servitude is still evil. Let's take a look at the verses the apologists refer to.

Exodus 21:2-6

"When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. But if the slave declares, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,” then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life."

What's being described here is debt slavery, which Christians will accurately point to as having a time limit, however, what you also notice is at the end it gives you provisions for making these people permanent slaves. You know, like chattel slaves. And the idea that this temporary slavery isn't evil is also absurd. Apologists will say that this how they helped the poor. News flash, helping the poor would be creating a society that doesn't require your neighbors to sell themselves to you, you stupid piece of burnt, unbuttered toast.

Next, the apologist will probably say something like "oh, well, the slaves were treated nicely." First of all, you cannot own someone and treat them nicely. Additionally, this argument is repugnantly racist because this is the exact same argument used by Confederate flag wavers to defend their "heritage." And it's simply not biblical either.

Exodus 21:20-21

"When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner's property."

If you truly believe the Bible wants you to treat slaves fairly then I challenge you to explain Exodus 21:20-21.

Something else I want to mention is the debt slavery in the Bible is eerily similar to how the British did it with India. When Britain abolished chattel slavery in the 1830s the plantation owners in the Caribbean wanted a way to make up for the lost labor, so they started doing indentured servitude from India. And just like the Bible this was marketed as a way for people to work off their debt for a few years. These were more often than not lied to and sometimes coerced into going. And by the way, the reason they had debts was because the British government fucked India in the ass. And just like Exodus 21:20-21 these people could be beaten, assaulted, not have marriages recognized, and worked to literal death because they were effectively property. And just like Exodus 21:6 the plantation owners found ways to keep them permanently. This is why parts of the Caribbean have a sizable Indian population. And this only ended in fucking 1917, which means that by depending biblical debt slavery you are defending the dehumanization of someone's parents and grandparents.

Another issue here is the Christian apologists will completely ignore the Bible's condonement of sex slavery.

Numbers 31:15-18

"Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? These women here, on Balaam's advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves."

What we see here in Numbers 31:15-18 is textbook sex slavery and I once again challenge any these moldy potatoes to explain how it's not.

Another frequent argument is only the Hebrew Bible endorses slavery and the New Testament doesn't, but this could not be farther from the truth. Let's start out by looking at what I think is most abhorrent slavery passage in the New Testament and, quite frankly, the entire Bible.

1 Peter 2:18-21

"Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps."

Not only does 1 Peter 2:18-21 say masters can abuse their slaves all the like, not only does it say slaves should accept the abuse and do so gleefully, it basically says Jesus and God wants you to suffer abuse in slavery. Again, I ask, how is this not an endorsement of slavery?

And of course we have more from the New Testament.

Ephesians 6:5-6

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart."

Colossians 3:22-24

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ."

1 Timothy 6:1

"Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed."

And while Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy were not written by Paul and are pseudonymous we do have Philemon, which is believed by scholars to be a genuine Paul epistle. In this letter Paul writes to his rich friend Philemon that his slave ran away and came to Paul. And Paul says he will return the slave to Philemon to keep him forever, but says he should treat him like a brother in Christ. Again, it doesn't matter how you treat an enslaved person due to the fact they're enslaved.

Philemon 1:15-16

"Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord."

Some Christians have tried to argue that this is Paul saying Philemon should be freed, however, Dr. Bart Ehrman, who is a leading authority on early Christianity, explains this is probably not what's happening. Just because Paul calls him a brother in Christ doesn't mean he's not a slave, just like how if I say to a female friend "I like you as a friend not as a girlfriend" I'm not denying her gender. Also, Paul did say "forever," which sounds an awful lot like chattel slavery to me.

Another absurd argument from Christian slavery apologists is God does not condone slavery he just gives you rules for how to practice it. This is a dumbass argument because having rules for something means it's okay to do. Also the fact God didn't just say "slavery is bad" shows me he's either a dick or a useless twat waffle.

The Christian apologist will also say the Bible's slavery was not race based. I will say this is partially true because race as we understand it now was not developed until within the last 500 years as a way for Europeans to justify subjugating non-Europeans. However, the Bible, like a lot of literature from antiquity, is at times quite ethnocentric. And the Bible endorses nationality and ethnic basd slavery. This last verse I'm going to point out should drive a nail through the coffin of any slavery apologetics because not only is this ethnic and nationality based slavery it is also complete chattel slavery.

Leviticus 25:44-46

"As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness."

This is it, folks. This is permanent, hereditary, ethnic and nationality based, property based, chattel slavery. This is literally what Black people experienced with slavery in the United States. If you try to make apologetics for this you are by default making apologetics for American slavery. Stop it!

Now for the elephant in the room. What about Jesus? Well, Jesus never said anything explicitly endorsing slavery, however, he never challenged it either. And when he doese mention slaves in his parables or when he uses it as it a metaphor he talks about it in a very neutral tone. So take from that what you will.

Why does the Bible condone slavery? What you'll notice is there's never any discussion about the morality of slavery simply because the Bible presupposes slavery. At the time the biblical literature was written slavery was just part of the fabric of reality. It wasn't just ancient Jews and Christians who owned slaves. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and many others owned slaves, so the Bible is not being worse than any other ancient literature. But of course slavery is still slavery.

My argument isn't that the Bible is evil all the time, it's messy and complex like the human beings who wrote it. But what it says about slavery certainly is evil and I think it's best we acknowledge bad things in the Bible for what they are and reject them instead of trying to obscure them or make them seem like something they're not. And, again, I'm not taking time to debunk apologist arguments to change these people's minds but to make sure people who aren't familiar with the literature don't fall victim to propaganda and most importantly to make sure these ideas don't go unchallenged. If you only take away one thing from this post it's to not let bigotry go unchallenged because that's how it survives.

And, lastly, websites like Twitter and TikTok have really got to do something about Christian slavery apologists because this is just ridiculous. Slavery apologetics should have died a long time ago.

Submitted October 10, 2022 at 03:16PM by Bisexual-Demigod (From Reddit https://ift.tt/EM8S9kn)

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I am genuinely concerned that comic book youtubers are going to create a GamerGate situation where there are extremists who poison the mass perception of people who criticise comic books or certain decisions in general.

 Like I have genuine problems with Amadeus Cho and Jane Foster being Hulk and Thor and I think Riri Williams and Miles Morales are bad characters (the latter being especially saddening because, unlike Riri, he had a strong initial concept powering him). I think Sam as Captain America was creatively problematic and that Marvel have been pulling the replacement hero thing for social/political reasons (and probably not sincere ones at that) as opposed to genuine creative ones. Similarly I think the America book is a lame super hero comic book and Gabby Rivera isn’t a strong super hero comic book writer. Similarly I think Marvel’s modern editors and assistant editors really do tend to suck at their jobs right now.

 But my rationales for all of those things honestly don’t have much crossover with certain Youtube comic book commentators (I’m sure you’ve all seen the kind) and I actually disagree and believe in a lot of other types of characters and directions cut from the same kinds of cloths as those above examples.

 I think Ice Man being gay made a certain amount of sense with his history and if you did have to pick a classical character to reveal as in the closet he was one of the best choices for it. We are in a position where Bobby could legitimately be given a strong romantic storyline and an iconic (for him, not necessarily within Marvel as a whole) love interest. I mean before Bendis had Jean out Bobby who honestly knew or cared who Bobby’s (comic book, not movie) love interests were? Hardly anybody aside from hardcore X-Men fans and most of them would argue Polaris was really the big one for Bobby. But at the same time most of them shipped Polaris with Havok anyway so what did that matter?

  I’ve said numerous times before Kamala Khan is the best new superhero character to come out of Marvel in the last 20 years. My problems with her series stem from the decompression alongside the fact that I don’t think her villain pool has been managed as well as it needs to be to enable her to last long term.

 Carol becoming Captain Marvel is something I find profoundly organic and logical, a brilliant stroke of character development that makes use of an iconic title by giving it to an iconic character who truly has claim to it. Look to me Carol’s outfit is always going to be the Ms Marvel outfit she wore for decades but at the same time to me Carol’s codename will always be Warbird, not Ms Marvel or Captain Marvel. I’m just from that generation.

 I think the general idea of temporarily having a black person become Captain America is interesting and understand the logic of making it Sam but at the same time I think the book never fulfilled it’s potential and ultimately Issiah Bradely or even Patriot would’ve been a much more interesting choice. But at the end of the day I cannot accept the creative bankruptcy of replacing Steve for the THIRD time and doing it the SECOND time in less than 10 years.

 I like Jane Foster’s Thor outfit, there are moments and aspects to her stories I find interesting but the way the series went about it overly denigrated the real Thor (and yes I will call him the real Thor, it is literally his name and he is supposed to be the actual figure from Norse mythology). I mean he was literally called out as ‘unworthy’ and the reason for his unworthiness made no sense at all. He realizes the Gods are assholes so he loses his worthiness. That isn’t how the hammer works, it’s just a binary ‘you are worthy or you are not’. Conviction in your personal beliefs doesn’t matter or else countless bad guys would be able to lift the hammer too. Additionally there were times where he narrative divulged into cheap, shallow in-universe attempts to ‘comment’ on the backlash against the concept. The Absorbing Man was at least somewhat exaggerating the complaints over a female Thor and at least dabbling in strawman arguments whilst Titania’s solidarity with Foster because she was stepping into the role of a man was utter out of character nonsense considering Titania’s arch nemesis is SHE Hulk. Jane consequently knocking out someone who’d surrendered was also ill considered. And I also cannot get over how we’ve been here before. Beta Ray Bill and Thunderstrike are testament to that. Once again creative bankruptcy.

 I’ve spoken countless times before how I think Miles had a good concept and still has potential but he’s been mismanaged and currently sucks shit as a character and how Marvel and certain fans and certain media outlets building him up as the best thing since sliced bread (or at least as great as Peter Parker) is profoundly unearned.

 I think the quality of editing at Marvel has clearly gone down hill but unless there really is some weird ass super Secret Empire conspiracy wherein Marvel went hardcore into hiring people because of their gender regardless of their qualifications, I don’t think the reason for that decline in quality is due to some (but far from all) of the editors and assistant editors being women. Frankly Steve Wacker is/was a major editorial player for awhile and his only legitimate qualification for being a Spider-Man editor was he could get the product on the shelves on time. The editing present in that product and their overall quality was shit 99% of the time. The guy lacked sufficient knowledge, passion or understanding of the character to really edit Spider-Man properly. This is a guy who was an amateur stand up comedian before entering comic books and has to my knowledge zero writing experience so why the fuck he was qualified to edit anything is beyond me. Maybe the new slew of editors and assistant editors are the same bunch of unqualified morons but I don’t think that’s got much to do with their sex or gender. After all Ann Nocenti was a solid X-Men editor and Molly Lazer edited Spider-Girl which was obviously a brilliant book. And shit Jeanette Kahn was President and EIC of DC comics for over 20 years and MOST of the stuff under her tenure was baller as shit. John Byrne Superman. Frank Miller Batman. Perez Wonder Woman. Wolfman Titans. DeMatteis/Giffin JLI. Kyle Rayner Green Lantern. Vertigo. Milestone. Watchmen. Frankly she oversaw what was maybe the single best EIC tenure for DC EVER in terms of quality.

  I gave up reading Coates’ BP run because I found it dull but I think T’Challa SHOULD have a book along with Blade, Luke Cage, Shang Chi and Jessica Jones.

I think the America Chaves series was problematic as a superhero story but the times where it does focus on the normal life stuff are generally good.

I was very impressed by Spider-Gwen when she debuted and looked forward to her ongoing, even defended her debut issue until I realized the critics were ont he money and it sucked and continues to suck to this day. It’s a profoundly shallow book but it could have been great and I supported it initially hoping it would be great.

I felt the Chelsea Cain Mockingbird series had moments of poor research, mischaracterisation and disingenuousness. I am specifically talking about how in issue #3 (I think) Cain uses Bobbi as a mouthpiece to criticise the lack of female representation within superhero comics. Okay cool. But she did it by essentially pretending that there never were any in the Marvel universe, that they got no respect in-universe and that Bobbi herself was at most a teenager growing up inspired by those male heroes whom she could never be like because she was male. Except there were female heroes, they did get in-universe respect (maybe not as much as was deserved but it wasn’t like people forgot they existed) and Bobbi is clearly too old to have grown up with any of the heroes other than the WWII guys like the Invaders. 

Similarly her retconning of the Phantom Rider thing in her final issue fixed one problem but did so utterly illogically whilst opening up multiple other problems. Look I’d also retcon the Hell out of Phantom Rider gaslighting and raping Mockingbird if given the chance I hate that plotline. But Cain retconned it by just having Mockingbird say that the stuff we have clear on the page evidence of didn’t actually happen. She was saying the colour blue is the colour red and always had been but it wasn’t. And Cain’s new spin on that Phantom Rider thing essentially threw Hawkeye under the bus by making him profoundly insecure and an asshole, because he’d rather believe his wife was raped rather than she cheated on him. Not to mention if Cain’s story is to be believed Mockingbird let the man she was sleeping with die for exactly no reason. There were other times during Cain’s run where I felt she was mischaracterizing some people or else was being too on the nose about stuff. 

But there were other times I thought the series was really funny, really action packed, i generally loved the pacing and I felt when it did cut more realistic (like the first issue when Bobbi is having a health check up) or in issue #3 when it was discussing the psychology of a sixth grade girl (even though said girl’s story had insufficient resolution, like did she go to jail or what?) it was incredibly refreshing. Truth be told a lot of the stuff in that series writing wise becomes easier to understand when you realize it’s partially a zany comedy and not really taking itself too seriously nor is it asking you to do the same, which is starkly different to say Spider-Gwen’s approach wherein it is playing stuff seriously but there is arbitrarily zany shit thrown in for the sake of it.

 I think Laura becoming Logan’s successor makes sense but it doesn’t mean it’s okay to just axe off Logan because he’s broken. FIX him and then down the line replace him. Laura’s book as is frankly just...an okay X-23 book with a new costume. I never cared for Laura outside of X-Men Evolution or the Logan movie (where she was more endearing) anyway.

 I didn’t agree with the female exclusive screenings of the Wonder Woman film but I also felt Zeus’s involvement in her origin was an unacceptable compromising of the specific feminist ideas and messages Wonder Woman was supposed to represent. I felt the same way about Azzarello’s run on the character which is where the Zeus origin came from and was happy Greg Rucka tried to fix that in his 2016 run.

 I’ve said before a poc actor playing Peter Parker is fine and dandy in my book and I was very open to Zendaya possibly playing Mary Jane (until I saw the movie...ugh...). My only concerns were in a significant way having the characters change to reflect the realities of them now being poc.

 I’ve suggested some basic ideas on how to maybe get more representation in Marvel and DC, including for queer, Trans and mentally ill characters and as I’ve seen it I’ve called shit out I found to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, e.g. I was disgusted by Civil War II killing off Rhodey and called out the way Cindy Moon was initially handled by Slott. And my frequent lambasting of MJ’s depiction under Slott (especially in Superior #2) should I hope by this point go without saying.

 So yeah my views don’t line up with those of Diversity and Comics but nor do they line up with those of ComicsAlliance and their hordes either. But because of people like the former people like the latter are going to broadbrush label and demonize people like me. People who might SEEM like we agree with guys like D&C but actually we’re coming at it from a very different angle and we don’t actually agree with their rationales 99% of the time.

 But in the times we live in right now nuance is apparently as dead as Batman’s parents.

 Frankly as I get older I guess I see myself socially/politically speaking being more of a moderate when it comes to comic books...and right now that feels like a profoundly lonely place to be.

[knightofbalance-13]

I Didn’t

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/163454403646/so-kob-how-exactly-did-you-debunk-my-claim

1. That was not the argument at hand in the OP: The argument was whetehr or not the shows you listed where better than RWBY.

And 2. I actually did compare RWBY to them. And I even pointed this out the last time you tried this and said how it was an example that RWBY stands up even to professional shows.

But, guess it’s easier to fight a strawman huh?

Primarily out of curiosity. To see if they still held up even after all these years, and to see how they compare to RWBY. IMPO, they are BETTER. Oh wait, that’s an opinion that makes RWBY seem mediocre in comparison, no WONDER you think that all I do is bash RWBY despite the fact that I want to love the show. It makes SO Much SENSE NOW.

No, you were talking in a very affirmative and factual way in the OP, meaning you were claiming yourself to be right. (https://knightofbalance-13.tumblr.com/post/162855264440/yes-yes-it-was)

And I realized that the show, Beast Wars, one of the very FIRST 3D Animated shows ever aired, is better than RWBY.

So no, you were not saying an opinion, you were trying to pass off an opinion as fact. As you are still doing now. And half of your argument is strawmaning me for pointing this out by twisting the facts: if you are so right, you wouldn’t need to do this.

1. So, if Cinder is supposed to be hated, why are we shown her having regrets about things? Why are we shown her to be in pain? These are things that are done to give us a reason to sympathize with a villain, but we have yet to actually be SHOWN or even TOLD what her reasons are for wanting power. She’s supposed to be sympathetic in those scenes in Vol 4, but earlier she acts like a villain who is aware that she’s evil, and is okay with that. Also, the Joker is a force of nature, no villain can top him. But Rampage utterly DEMOLISHES Cinder in the ‘motive’ department.

because she was give n some humanity, some flaws, to make her less two dimensional. By this logic, because the Joker has a tragic backstory, we are meant to feel sorry for him when that is clearly not the case.

And here’s a problem I stated in the argument: Beast Wars is finished. RWBy is not. In the future, we could very well get more information on Cinder’s motives. You can’t make judgements like these until you have all the facts: And yet you are making broad strokes about RWBY.

No...The Joker is not a “Force Of Nature” villain: Darkseid is an example of that type of villain. The Joker is the “Insane, tricky, unpredictable, chaotic trickster” type of villain. This is a problem you have here: You cannot tell the difference between two types of characters. It’s like saying Shinji Ikari is a better protagonist than Goku: they are not compatible. In fact: That in and of itself is a problem here. Rampage was built t be the “Tragic insane” character whereas Cinder is the “power hungry manipulator” villain: they are not compatible thus the argument comes down to who you like subjectively better and in an argument, that means jack shit.

And another thing: You STILL don’t explain jackshit abut your side: How does rampage crush Cinder in motive? Why does he? You can’t just claim these things as fact.

2. Beast Wars IS better. For starters, the writers NEVER withheld valuable information, and they never relied on forced humor. Not to mention the fact that the characters are fleshed out, and get more than one episode in the limelight.

Okay, so first you say that you are stating your opinion and now you are repeating what you said earlier but as fact...Dudeblade, you can’t even go a paragraph without contradicting yourself.

Okay...So? How is that bad? How is not withholding information bad in RWBY or Best Wars? in fact: How do you know withholding info wouldn’t make Beast Wars better or not make RWBY better? No explanation? FIne, your argument is invalid.

How is the humor forced or not forced? What is the tone of Beats Wars and how does it ? Any examples? No? Then I claim bias against RWBY again.

And RWBY isn’t finished: Stop making jumps in logic just to suit your narrative.

3. This is because RW/BY has a cultish following of fans who refuse to see the bad in the show. Like you. You claim that RT isn’t homophobic when they literally repeated the same unfunny “fag” joke in Camp Camp TWICE! And this is just proving my point. “If it’s professionally made, but has a lower rating on IMDb, then we can compare it to RW/BY“ - That’s you. “If it was professionally made, but has a higher rating than RW/BY, then it isn’t fair to compare the two.” - That’s also you.

And I can claim that Beast Wars has a cultist following fueled by Nostalgia and it’d hold the same weight as yours: none at all. because neither of us provide any evidence. In fact, I can say that you are biased against RWBY and then as proof point out all points in which you ignore aspects of RWBY (such as being incomplete, different types of villians and how the shows are structured) or never give examples (humor, motives, characters as well as action, vocals, audio and animation) in this very post in order to declare Beats Wars better.

I can also point out the fact that you call Camp Camp unfunny but admit to watching South Park and the SImpsons were they made those exact same jokes.

And no, I am not. As we will see latter down the line, I actually compare RWBY to higher rated shows. You are the only one who refuses to acknowledge RWBY as being professional until you can say that it is worse than something else.

Here, let me do it right now. Jimmy is the smart kid who feels like an outcast because of his intillect - Something that people can relate to because they can feel like an outcast for simply being BETTER than others at something. Carl is the kid with the medical conditions and weird obsession, which everyone has. Sheen is the guy who hero worships a fictional character, much like how you worship miles and Kerry. Cindy is the girl who is jealous that her title of “The Smartest” was toppled, and Libby has an obsession over music - something that EVERYONE has, or at least KNOWS a person who is.

Except that I don’t feel like an outcast because of my intellect, in fact, it wasn’t because I had something over other people but rather I LACKED something from them. So Jimmy would seem pretentious and entitled to me. Not everyone has a weird obsession and definitely doesn’t have medical conditions. And you missed the ACTUAL chance to be right and say “Kamina or Simon The Digger”, two characters I heavily look up to. Instead, you bring up an attack on me that makes you look like an ass.

Cindy just comes off as a brat to me because I LIKE it when someone is smarter than me: it allows me to see what I am doing wrong and improve. And Libby’s obsession with music is literally the only thing I can relate to.

See the problem Dudeblade? Not everyone THINKS your way, not everyone AGREES with you: In fact, most people don’t.

Going off of your point: I can say the same to the characters in RWBy. Everyone has been like Ruby at some point, blissfully believing in a good world. A lot of people have parental problems like Weiss (like you), a lot of people can relate to trying to fight against the world while trying to NOT become like their enemy and a lot of people can relate to Yang’s depression (as I have and I know you have.) Even if you bring up my previous point: That just means the two shows go after different things.

But if you insist on this, let me ask you: Name a trait of Jimmy’s that isn’t smart or condescending. Name a trait of Carl’s beside sick and weird. Name a trait of Sheen’s beyond stupidity and obsession. Because I can with RWBY: Ruby’s issues with dealing with the world not being what she thought it was, her eagerness to make friends and her guilt about putting people around her in danger. Weiss has her overcoming her racism, learning to put aside her grievances with Ruby to work with her and become her best friend and her admiration of her sister Winter. Blake has her cowardice, her martyr complex, her issues with Adam as well as her inability to let people help her. yang has her maturity, her depression and overcoming it, her good nature, her relationship with Ruby and her father, her duality with her mother and her tendency to be harsh towards those she cares about. You do not give an example of how they are better characters beyond being relateable which RWBY has as well.

Oh hey, look! MORE proof that IMDB ratings are all that matter. Despite the fact that you claim that LoK has an unfair advantage when it has a higher rating.

1. Because they are factual and the only place RWBY shares a page with all the examples.

And 2. I pointed out the exact same advantages that the other three had as well:

And unlike Beast Wars which is a part of an existing franchise, complete and had more professional backing: RWBY didn’t and still doesn’t. Again, while this is amazing of Beast Wars, RWBY is still factually rated higher so your opinion doesn’t hold much weight.

And this while being completed and backed by a popular network whereas, again, RWBY is NOT. SO even with all those advantages, RWBY still beats it out.

And it aired on Cartoon Network and is complete. So your statement fails.

I bring them up in BOTH sides of the coin: You only argue them when they have the higher ratings.

More proof that you only care about ratings when it comes to comparisons.

Contradicted when I demanded that you explain why it was better right BEFORE that as well as the fact that I bring up this right at the end:

And the only one I really fond impressive is Beast Wars. Storm hawks and Jimmy Neutron are both utterly crushed by RWBY in teh ratings, who doesn’t have network backing, isn’t a part of an existing franchise and isn’t complete so it can still go up.

And again: ratings are factual. You cannot make them up nor can you fake them. They are a factual way of quantifying a series' quality. You have yet to disprove that.

YOU SEE! You just proved my point. You just said that the other shows don’t matter because they got crushed by ratings, but when it’s RWBY that’s getting crushed, then it’s unfair because they had “network backing.” NEWS FLASH! - LoK got SCREWED OVER by the network. Your argument is ALREADY contradicted by actual facts.

Except that these exact points you bring up were brought up with the previous three when they had lower ratings: You are only now arguing them because you have a chance at twisting the facts.

And how was LOK screwed over? Because it got so low ratings that Nickolodean pulled it off the air? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TheLegendOfKorra) Wouldn’t a show getting pulled or canceled be a sign of it being bad normally unless proven otherwise, which is not the case here? Especially since TLA never did?

Again, because people like YOU keep claiming that it’s “unfair” to compare RWBY to things like LoK or SU. RWBY has the advantage of not having to deal with censors, and being able to go back to fix things they are aware would make fans confused, but they don’t take advantage of it. Which is a problem considering that you seem to ignore the fact that other shows have to deal with censors, and don’t have the luxury of being able to hire TFS or Funimation VA for one-shot characters. when SU uses a guest star, it’s for a character that is special, and is likely to return. RWBY? - “Oh hey! Let’s hire TFS voice actors for these characters” “Great, which ones?” “These guys.” “But, they’ll only be there for one episode…And they hardly have any lines.” “Exactly! We’ll get the recognition of USING TFS actors to voice characters,and NOT have to worry about paying them so much” - That? That was the (probable) thought process that went into the idea of using TFS actors. Though, it’s also my cynicism talking as well.

I claim it is unfair...then proceed to compare them to RWBY with the same standards that I did with the previous three while you refuse to argue ratings until they are higher than RWBY’s? And...so what about censors? Stuff that the censors deal with nowadays don't concern the quality of a show: Lesbians and black people do not make a good show. They are inconsequential to a show’s quality.

And that’s true...only Tara Strong, one of the most iconic voices in the business.

And a constant compliant with RWBY has always been the voice acting: So wouldn’t hiring more professional actors fix the problem? So attempting to fix a problem is bad now?

And you just admitted to having bias being prevalent in your argument: Why should anyone take what you say here seriously?

Much like how RWBY isn’t even noteworthy enough to get a review by the Nostalgia Critic despite LoK and SU doing so. And considering that you used the words “mostly just using Smash Bros brawl for acting” when you conveniently ignore the stolen assets that RWBY uses, I’m guessing you don’t even know the story at all.

... Nostalgia critic doesn’t review cartoons anymore, especially such recent ones. That's Doug Walker and those are Vlogs, personal opinion. Not factual reviews.

And that “assest stealing” has been disproven (https://lovenotefromcoco.tumblr.com/post/155633293739/slashmaiddeviantartcomartrwby-wtf-645284611). A RWBY fan would know this.

Here’s another thing: Just because RWBY is the first American-made anime DOESN’T automatically excuse any of the mistakes that it constantly makes. I know that’s a hard concept for you, but I can do this about Beast Wars and the mistakes that it made despite being one of the first 3D animated shows to ever air.

Okay...never said it did: You were just trying to devalue the accomplishments of RWBY so I showed accomplishments you couldn’t devalue.

Ahem; Tigerhawk got killed off too early, we never got to explore a whole lot on Megatron’s dragon mode, Blackarachnia whines about not being trusted too much despite having a lot more bad blood with the other Maximals, they used TIME TRAVEL as part of the plot, and Rampage’s caring nature wasn’t explored that much.

And yet you claim it to be better than RWBY when I see many of the same mistakes you claim RWBY has done in here. And when I did this in the past, you still called me a fanboy so why should this be different for you?

There, I just listed off some of the things in Beast Wars that were mistakes/irritating. But unlike RWBY, these are just mine, whereas most of the gripes about RWBY are shared by most of the rwde tag.

And are these shared by most of the RWBY tag on Tumblr, let alone circles that do not include Tumblr? Are they shared by the critics of RWBY or that one jackass FMF? No, so by your own logic, you are still wrong here.

Grow the fuck up kob. RWBY isn’t “Magically exempt from criticism” like you say. Neither are miles, Kerry, Grey, and the rest of crwby. They have to be held accountable for their bullshit excuses and mistakes, or they’ll only receive praise from the likes of you and the rest of the cultish fndm. Meaning that they’ll keep making the same mistakes over. And over. And over.

Funny you say that: I did in fact criticize RT in my Volume 4 review (https://team-crtq.tumblr.com/post/162758524659/volume-4-review). I’m not the one lying, attacking people, being hypocritical, calling someone racist in the tags for no reason other than Ad Hominin and attacking people. I’ m not the one who refuses to say anything but one side of a conversation, refuse to do the same for other shows and then calls everyone who disagrees with them a “cult.” That’s just you.

You failed in the very title of your post so I don’t know what you were expecting.

[maneaterwithtail]

Warning depressed overindulgent rant about kids cartoon incoming

I’m cross-posting that’s from spacebattles. You know I really need to start posting some positive s*** about Steven Universe. There’s a reason why it keeps getting my attention. I really love the setup, there are wonderful events, I love that its Aim so well. It’s managed to assemble a number of things as well as had a way of interacting with fans that encourages creativity and a community that produces so much that can be loved and expresses Joy. 

I guess I’m just a natural Grump and I can only talk about things when I’m pissed off or think I’m being smart by dissecting it. Which in my mind means needlessly ranting about every silly little thing that I observe about a work or feel about a work or I feel about the people that I’m watching the work alongside. I understand if this is not the kind of thing that you like. I can also understand if you want to be defensive of the show. Just respect the fact that I’m a person who has watched the show for a bit or just a person at all. But I do want to have some sort of discussion. It is why I am posting this out loud. It’s just with the ramp up for more speculation and another interview I just feel like we’ve been at this dance so many damn times and we’re just being jerked around here. Which of course is the purpose of any work of art. At least serial media. You constantly give just enough so that people feel inclined to come back for more. But I guess well read the rant

Whiteeyes, post: 36894166, member: 314250

No mo, it felt much much worse. See Lost had no answers when it was written. It was created to pile up mysteries for a season or so and then get cancled like Twin Peams and every ither wekrd mystery show so they never had to answer any. It became too popular to cancel and they had to scramble to invent answers. SU has had dorwshadowing and setup as warly as season 1. It knows what it is doing.

 .... I personally think that Steven Universe's character development and pacing is hampered by the fact that it wants to make everything a f****** mystery. This was a characteristic of Lost in a way that it got ridiculous. To the point where things like what's on Jack's tattoo or who is married or who was not or who had a terminal illness that they had known publicly forever and so on and so forth.  

  I think Steven Universe suffers from the same problem. Basic character development, interaction, or what-have-you tends to be put in a mystery box just so that that way we can create drama and then have it emerge later to create a resolution without progress. 

The problem is that while mystery is their main tool in this endeavor to set up interest it's not the only way in which they do this and then be annoying. Now some of this is the fans frothing themselves up.

 relevant example, when we see a title and then flip out about major speculation for a major plot point and then get disappointed when it's basically not so. 

 However I think this is in a part with all of their setup plot developments. As an example the return of Marty.  

  I actually want to be very fair-minded here. The Sour Cream situation identity and everything about him was very carefully set up over the course of a year and it actually made sense for once that he was a relatively new char in Stevens life. He's apparently older, runs with a different crowd, all that stuff. 

Marty comes back for one episode 

Not only do they run the most cliched plot imaginable about a deadbeat father and artsy dreamer son and the man who doesn’t get their passion but they do this basically to setup a virtue signal and reconcile sour cream and yellowtail in perhaps the worst way imaginable. In the first episode they actually share a scene.

But they don't share a scene in anyway proceeding to their actual reconciliation. All of that is cut aside just so that we can get to our cute little happy ending. This kind of ran things into the ground for me in some ways. Everybody defends moves of aborted long-term plot like this by saying that Steven Universe is more about people and characters and it is not about big plot twists and Sci-Fi Action. 

That might be true but they're doing that character and living the life stuff in a bad way as well. By not having the family reconcile but by having Yellowtail basically come around and agree because Sour Cream suddenly has a villain for Yellowtail to prove immediately better than.

  For a show that's often praised for its diversity and lack of stock archetypes this was too cliche    You see this time and again with long setup plot points whether it's the eventual return and revelation of the backstory of lapis Lazuli, the face off with the cluster, and others- That isn't to say all long-term plot points have fallen on their face but a lot of them have and it seems as if what succeeds or what gets the necessary follow-up is arbitrary and random

This isn't the usual complaint of "this is filler! where is the plot?" This happens whether it's character Focus-interaction that often feels as if it's taking forever to happen or gets bogged down in Mindless drama such as the entire relationship between Sadie and Lars to the point that Lars doesn't feel as if he has a real character until these last 7 or so episodes. 

He was basically the Grump. A cartoon stock archetype, a television stock archetype, a place talk archetype. 

You didn't have to think about why he was grumpy because there was no reason other than to make him and grumpy.  And remember this is the longest term character that's been on the show (was in the pilot) and he had a ridiculously thin characterization.

 All of this would still be bad even if he didn't have a plot line that made me cringe 

mackon, post: 36912103, member: 9256

Sure there are a lot of scenarios where the Zoo could be where it is and Pinks holdings only cover the solar system but just looking at what we have seen so far it looks like Pink administrated space covers more -shrug- How the Gempire is governed is sure to be more complex than X diamond runs this area and Y diamond runs that area anyway.

 And this just all ties it together. We get all of this stuff that's supposed to matter then push it all to the side and then come up with confrontation that's in many ways not satisfying because there's no build-up or it's just confusing or inevitably leads to more stupid questions that aren't even asked in the show.    I guess what makes this so frustrating is that the show has great set up. it does set up very well. But every time, or at least many times, when it's time for the payoff for those Domino's to go it always goes off like a bad fart. 

All of these are pointing to the same issue. . .

For some people this is the climax of The Cluster. For others It's the Return of Marty. For others it's The Search For Answers.  Some others feel disappointed because they think that there hasn't been enough queer text in the show. Others feel like characters are often push the Wayside and not given enough time to interact with the world shaking plot.  All of these are pointing to the same issue, broadly speaking. Crewniverse throws something in the air but they don't follow through. Or they passport or just suddenly resolve something with another IOU. 

The weird part is when they do this with a plot point they say that it's about the people. But Fusion Cuisine (wryyyyy) I think keeps hurting me because it's the episode that proves they don't respect people and character interaction.   

 Character interaction has to have consequences. Those consequences can be negative.  It can be positive but it has to arise and seem to follow from each other. Subtle or flagrant but the consequences of character interaction, if having dramatic focus, have to be observable and meaningful. Instead, all too often, we see artificial ways in order to create drama and then arbitrarily end or ignore it. For some people this is Stevens disturbing naivete childish behavior when he supposed to be a mid teenager. The lack of follow-up questions or the way that plot points will conveniently go off screen for months at a time only to then pop up in order to keep up interest and tease us and then come off with a lack of resolution despite lots of build up to no change or wasted opportunity.  

I think one thing that's bothering me is the reintroduction of there being some mystery to the death of Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz's crime against her. We've been here. already.  we know what the answer is supposed to be. And yet apparently there's a new mystery. 

Only I bet this new mystery is going to end up just as dissatisfying as “What is Lapis’s backstory?” or “How are we going to find Malachite?” or “How are we going to resolve The Cluster?” or “How will Beach City recover and her people deal with overwhelming change and trauma of an unnatural disaster?”

This shows up in other ways such as the not taking care of the Rubies when they have a ship. Or the fact that Homeworld keeps taking its sweet damn time in order to take care of the Crystal Gems and Earth even when it keeps on being a hostile instigator in the lives of the gems.    

And I think Fusion Cuisine is emblematic of this fault with regards to character stories and showing that statement about character over grand plots as a poor excuse. They will create a situation that literally doesn't require any crisis which won’t be treated or result as one. The family just needed basic common sense or respect, even between strangers, and then they won't follow through on the natural consequences of the family’s disrespectful lies or dangerous actions. 

And underlying this is a sense of- I don't know-  condescension or virtue signaling? On one level the Crewmiverse really do follow through on the implication that yes Steven has a queer family. On the other it feels as if they've set up the Maheshwarens as strawman that they've spent the rest of their appearance just being someone in order to goof with. I still claim this due to the fact that Dr. Maheshwaren is treated as if she's overprotective or crazy because controls her daughter media consumption; when connie lied to her (twice) regarding her experiences and activities with STeven and his family.  She lies about taking dangerous lessons from a person who partook in an assault of her daughter and has expressed bigoted opinions of her race -as in the human race- for months. This disobedience, to make Connie a fighter, is Justified because the story made Dr. Maheshwaren too damn stupid to notice not only does her daughter not wear her glasses anymore but that the three limbed candy colored being with no heartbeat is a gem Fusion and Connie saves her from it.   So the resolution is Connie NEEDS to be a sword fighter for the growing dangers of the Cluster.

 only we remove that as a valid point 

 For a show that keeps purporting being about togetherness, the cast herding and other things kind of put that as a lie. And Fusion Cuisine is an exemplary of this. It exists for a lot of reasons, but the number one thing it ends up doing is helping justify this sense of distance between humanity and the gems and completely ignoring ways in which they can come together and be understood.  Or conflict and come to resolution and understanding. So the character conflicts and development feel artificial or low stakes or superfluous and the plot and combat and Magic feels as if its always being sandbagged for these meaningless character beats.

 I think the show is going to lose me.    And I don't think there's any big thing that it can do now to convince me. It's spent so much of the goodwill and belief from its initial run and set up.  It has undermined all of it set up when it's actually gotten anywhere. I no longer trust the show to turn out to be well. At least in a way that I think will be satisfying for when they pull another “wait until you see the payoff for this” move AGAIN. And I suspect it's going to keep misfiring in ways while implying that it's so damn clever. 

There's just something incredibly artificial about Lars being captured with Steven and effectively telling all of his emotional issues that I feel like they have not been appropriately Illustrated despite multiple character Focus episodes.    And given the track record on how long it takes to actually engage with plot points or how they can be unsatisfying-ly resolved and then put out the way until they are unsatisfying-ly resolved is also bothersome. 

I was kind of okay with the end of The Cluster but I also understand how that could frustrate some. But one way that I can agree it was bad is we effectively spend all this time setting up the end of the world and the resolution of The Cluster basically put it out of mind and hasn't been Revisited or had any further effect.  The only lasting consequence has been the Turning of Peridot.[and according to some that’s been flattened to irrelevance too] 

So that meant that The Cluster basically existed so that that way we would have something in order for Peridot to oppose to justify her becoming a good person. Which reminds me of how they handled Marty and Sour Cream and Yellowtail and so I'm really really uncomfortable about them trying to go “oh, we're going to be all about character don't be all about the magical Destiny b*******.” only characters remain thin and ignorant and nothing but potential fodder

  Maybe I'm just in a really nasty mood[edit- looking back I was]. But I will say this; I think after this much time the show has set up its relationship with the audience and I think it's made me distrustful and doubtful of its reliability. I don't want any more promotional material. I don't want any more interviews covering for stuff not in the show. I don't want any more teases. I want an actual story executed on the screen in a satisfying manner.    And honestly I think what with the relative Circle walking season 4 and the reintroduction of more complications about mysteries about Rose and more drama about Steven feeling sad and more “Steven is going to have to introduce Humanity to this alien-person” as his own life seems as divorced from Human Experience as possible. 

The artifice of the show is coming out. It's much like how some can't take Game of Thrones seriously anymore. It makes sense to kill off the characters that they have killed off but there's no more emotional investment and we’re getting more and more sense that all of this is a bunch of Sensational nonsense.

[evilelitest2]

So lets talk about Autism for a moment

Rare personal post for a moment.  Now I don’t tend to talk about my personal life on tumblr very much, because it is my personal life and it is tumblr.  But yes, I am autistic, and no, I don’t talk about it very much, and yes, I do have something to say about it for once.  

A little while ago, a chap known as @leepacey had a post where they had a list of characters who they believed were Autistic.  Most were characters who I didn’t know or I agreed with, but some on the list were characters like Zuko from Avatar, Flynn from The Force Awakens, Elphaba from Wicked, Hermione from Harry Potter, and Lilo from Lilo and Stich.  All of whom are characters who I don’t think are autistic, just socially awkward.  In fact I really think there is a problem with the way autism is understood in popular media where anybody who is uncomfortable socially is labelled autistic. This makes talking about the condition on its own terms rather difficult.  And I said as much. But then @leepacey here PMed me this: "hi are you autistic? also did u read that screenshotted post at the top of my post before running your mouth? also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness” and then this: “also before you respond saying anything, please know: i don't care about literally anything you could say to me unless it's an apology for interacting with my post.” I said that yes, I was autistic and they responded with this:

“i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too”

Later on they made more than a few mean remarks about my dyslexia

Oh did I forget to mention? I am dyslexic, which should come as absolutely no surprise at all to anybody who follows me. Anyways.

I was surprised to find that I felt legitimately. Long time followers know that I don’t get hurt very often by internet drama, but there is something uniquely upsetting when somebody who claims to represent my interests spits in my face.  Having your experience invalidated is never fun, and so you can consider this post the closest I get to an emotional outburst on the internet. But since it’s me, I want to re-frame this whole thing in terms of politics because...of course I do.  

So....couple of problems here.  The blog is decently popular and far more importantly, seems to be about autistic rights.  It is claiming to represent autisic people, but has this really nebulous way of using a legitimate issue as a cudgel. And I see this behavior with a lot of people in a lot of different movements.

And no, this isn’t a “SJW are terrible” post because I’m pretty sure I’m an SJW, if that term means “somebody who acknowledges that social inequality exists.” One of the difficulties of social justice is that it is very difficult to talk critically about it without inviting alt right GamerGate reactionary trump voting assholes to leap in and declare the entire notion of social justice fundamentally wrong. So let me just say: Anita Sarkeesian is not a conman.

There is no White Genocide.

Autism isn’t abnormal.

But I can’t help but notice people use issues as way to abuse power, and so here is a helpful list of tips of how to identify those who co-opt causes for their own benefit. ‘Cause you find these people in every movement, and they are always toxic.

Since I am as always, horrible with technology, I still haven’t figured out how to screenshot personal chats, so I am posting the transcripts at the bottom here for those who want to see the details. A few things that keep happening:

1) There’s no possibility of reasonable, non-bigoted disagreement.

My original post was ‘I don’t think these characters are autistic because X” That was about the sum of it.  Now, maybe I was wrong, maybe I am completely and utterly wrong, but this person didn’t really allow for there to be any way I could disagree with their conclusions without being somebody who wants to make autistic people miserable.  I have to have an ulterior motive, I need to be motivated by something other than “I disagree with the actual content here,” because then they would have to respond to my arguments. It’s not as if addressing my arguments here was particularly difficult or upsetting--the only thing at issue is whether a fictional character is autistic or not. 

And It’s not as if I wasn’t open to being wrong. For example, upon reflection, Lilo being autistic actually does make a good deal of sense, @chaotic-good-milk-hotel made a good argument for why it makes sense to read Lilo as autistic.  We can talk, disagree, have a conversation about this without anybody having an ulterior motive or ill intention because you know...its just people’s head cannons.

2) They immediately go for the throat.  

Again, this is a conversation about somebody’s headcanon that Zuko from Avatar is Autistic.  This is the definition of a conversation that doesn’t need to get mean spirited in the least.  But right off the bat I am hit by “also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness.” Because there is a certain type of person who really conflates any disagreement with the worse levels of disagreement.  At the risk of going armchair psychology, I imagine that they want me to be the type of person who thinks Autism Speaks is legitimate, so they can feel more justified by lashing out at me cause you know....anger is addictive.  

3) Massive hypocrisy:

Am I the only one who notices that they are like “I fight against ableism” but continued to mock my spelling after I told them I was dyslexic?  Cause it isn’t really about the issue, the issue is just a way to put somebody else down.  

4) Strawmaning

Here is my original response.  Nowhere in this did I say I wanted to hurt autistics, nowhere did I support Autism Speaks, nowhere did I say that I wanted there to be less autistic representation, yet I am evidently dismissing the entire notion of autistic people being acceptable.  Again: “i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too” 

5) Conflating what is good for you with what is good for the larger movement.

This is the big one I really want to talk about. The rest are more personal gripes, but this is the biggest danger you find in communities for the marginalized: people who take their own personalities and make them into the supposed personality of the community. Throughout the chat leepacey continues to refer to any disagreement with themselves as a disagreement with the movement as a whole.  So if you think “That character is not autistic” by extension you are saying “I think that autistics have no value whatsoever”. In essence “I speak for the autistics, if you speak against me, you speak against autistics.” Hmm, that sounds familiar. Speak. Autism. Autism. Speak. No, it’s not coming to me.

And you can find this kind of really dangerous attitude all the time in marginalized communities, because when you are legitimately oppressed by society, it is really really easy to rationalize all your behavior as just a response to oppression.  When you do good work fighting against obviously evil people, it is easy to see anybody who opposes you as part of that same evil.  And that’s how you end up attacking members of the group you’re supposed to be fighting for.

Criticism does not equal persecution.  There is real legitimate persecution out there, you don’t need to elevate normal criticism to the level of oppression. And once you get into the realm of reading all criticism as persecution, then your movement has begun to attack itself.  

This is the reason I rarely talk about my autism: because this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. The autism “community” which always winds up hurting me more than it ever helps. This person claims to represent autistic people, but they sure as hell didn’t represent me.

Happy April Everyone. 

Chat logs are below, if any of you know how I can screenshot them and post them to confirm them as legit, please let me know because I don’t really like asking people just to take me for my word.

Today at 6:22 PMleepacey sent a photoset ✨ happy autism acceptance mo...hi are you autistic? also did u read that screenshotted post at the top of my post before running your mouth? also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness

leepacey: also before you respond saying anything, please know: i don't care about literally anything you could say to me unless it's an apology for interacting with my post

dicecast: I love this "Are you autistic""Before you answer, I am just going to go run on a a ton of preemptive defensive assumptions"But the answer is yes and you're post is just...wrong

leepacey: i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be toohow dare other autistic people make positivity posts

dicecast: or.....ori disagree with the content of you're post  like it is entirely possible that I don't think those characters are autistic without wishing hatred on autistic

leepacey: so just don't reblog it? magical i know

dicecast:atustics*

leepaceyso keep your garbage off my post

dicecast: I didn't want to not reblog it

leepacey*atustics 😂😂😂

dicecast: I thhink people mistake social discomfort with autism

leepacey: nice okay

dicecast: which I think marginalizes autism more.  i'm dylexic dude but kudos for like immediately going for the throat

that level of defensiveness and hyperbolic ad hominem really is a testament to how much you care about people 

because you know...it isn't remotely possible I might....disagree with those characters

being labeled as autistic

leepacey: i am autistic and am getting a masters in nonfiction creative writing, writing about myself and my autism. it's literally my life's work, writing about autism positivity as a way of helping the mental health of other autistic people and educating allistics about the traits of autism. but yeah; i'm spreading misinformation about autistic traits because god forbid people don't see us all as nonverval five year olds

dicecast: I wasn't aware that assuming i hate autistic people is spreading the message positively

Also, and this might be a bit difficult so I"ll go slowely but it is possible that I don't want autistics to be depicted as only non verbal 5 years olds

AND...

wait for it

I still disagree with some of you're choices on the list

leepacey: this post is made to help the mental health of autistic people. it's not meant as a definitive guide to autistic traits. i went through tags finding the most popular autistic headcanons, and compiled them on one post, because the beginning of april can be a very negative and triggering time for people because of autism speaks.

dicecast: like those don't contracit each other

leepaceyshut up for five seconds god you talk too much

dicecast: oh no....i write fast, how bloody terrible

now i actually agree that april can be triggering time for autistics and I hate autism speaks because they are awful

leepacey: yeah, hence the existence of my *positivity* post

dicecast: but again....i disagreed with you're choice of character

I don't think some of those characters autistic...and you're solution is to basically say i'm a self loathing autistic person....

leepacey: and you're still under the assumption anyone cares ?

dicecast: because I disagreed with you're choicesleepaceyokaydicecastwell I clearly got under you're skin...again, this is a major overreaction

because disagreeing with you

you specifically

isn't hating autistic peple

unless you are the autism pope I suppose

leepacey: my post has like 11k notes of autistic people saying how much this post means to them, and then a couple people like you (usually allistics) being like no!!! these characters aren't autistic!!!!! wah wah!!!! like how dare a post make autistic people happy, right? you're the one who decides if headcanons are okay or not

dicecast: The fact that you can't distinguish between "I don't think these characters are autistic" and "I don't think autistic people should be happy" says a lot more about you than 11k responses

cause you know...I didn't say autistic shouldn't be happy

Now we can have a reasonable conversation about if Zuko is autistic or notread into various scenes and talk about autistic representation

leepacey: that's the thing i keep trying to repeat to you: the post exists to make autistic people happy. you think that i'm so wrong to say these characters are autistic, as if it's some crime to humanity that i say "hey maybe prince zuko is autistic :D" like that's some crime against humanity

dicecast: Disagreeing with you is a crime against humanity?

leepacey: sarcasm, sweetheartnice reading skillzi'm done hear. go back to reddit, troll  {and then they blocked me} -------

Note: I think it is pretty obvious that they thought I wasn’t autistic and were totally prepped to go into a whole “You aren’t autistic you can’t speak” spiel and then just got all huffy and ran off when they realized they didn’t actually have that particular gun in their arsenal.

And I want this duly noted...they messaged me. I didn’t go to them. Opening up with “Fuck you and I don’t care what you have to say” and then blocking me. Classy. 

[Post edited by randomshoes, who is very angry because someone was very very nasty to her friend and he’s upset and she can’t do anything about it other than pick for typos. What you say to people matters.]

[dicecast]

Lets Talk about Autism

Rare personal post for a moment.  Now I don’t tend to talk about my personal life on tumblr very much, because it is my personal life and it is tumblr.  But yes, I am autistic, and no, I don’t talk about it very much, and yes, I do have something to say about it for once.  

A little while ago, a chap known as @leepacey had a post where they had a list of characters who they believed were Autistic.  Most were characters who I didn’t know or I agreed with, but some on the list were characters like Zuko from Avatar, Flynn from The Force Awakens, Elphaba from Wicked, Hermione from Harry Potter, and Lilo from Lilo and Stich.  All of whom are characters who I don’t think are autistic, just socially awkward.  In fact I really think there is a problem with the way autism is understood in popular media where anybody who is uncomfortable socially is labelled autistic. This makes talking about the condition on its own terms rather difficult.  And I said as much. But then @leepacey here PMed me this: "hi are you autistic? also did u read that screenshotted post at the top of my post before running your mouth? also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness” and then this: “also before you respond saying anything, please know: i don't care about literally anything you could say to me unless it's an apology for interacting with my post.” I said that yes, I was autistic and they responded with this:

“i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too”

Later on they made more than a few mean remarks about my dyslexia

Oh did I forget to mention? I am dyslexic, which should come as absolutely no surprise at all to anybody who follows me. Anyways.

I was surprised to find that I felt legitimately. Long time followers know that I don’t get hurt very often by internet drama, but there is something uniquely upsetting when somebody who claims to represent my interests spits in my face.  Having your experience invalidated is never fun, and so you can consider this post the closest I get to an emotional outburst on the internet. But since it’s me, I want to re-frame this whole thing in terms of politics because...of course I do.  

So....couple of problems here.  The blog is decently popular and far more importantly, seems to be about autistic rights.  It is claiming to represent autisic people, but has this really nebulous way of using a legitimate issue as a cudgel. And I see this behavior with a lot of people in a lot of different movements.

And no, this isn’t a “SJW are terrible” post because I’m pretty sure I’m an SJW, if that term means “somebody who acknowledges that social inequality exists.” One of the difficulties of social justice is that it is very difficult to talk critically about it without inviting alt right GamerGate reactionary trump voting assholes to leap in and declare the entire notion of social justice fundamentally wrong. So let me just say: Anita Sarkeesian is not a conman.

There is no White Genocide.

Autism isn’t abnormal.

But I can’t help but notice people use issues as way to abuse power, and so here is a helpful list of tips of how to identify those who co-opt causes for their own benefit. ‘Cause you find these people in every movement, and they are always toxic.

Since I am as always, horrible with technology, I still haven’t figured out how to screenshot personal chats, so I am posting the transcripts at the bottom here for those who want to see the details. A few things that keep happening:

1) There’s no possibility of reasonable, non-bigoted disagreement.

My original post was ‘I don’t think these characters are autistic because X” That was about the sum of it.  Now, maybe I was wrong, maybe I am completely and utterly wrong, but this person didn’t really allow for there to be any way I could disagree with their conclusions without being somebody who wants to make autistic people miserable.  I have to have an ulterior motive, I need to be motivated by something other than “I disagree with the actual content here,” because then they would have to respond to my arguments. It’s not as if addressing my arguments here was particularly difficult or upsetting--the only thing at issue is whether a fictional character is autistic or not.

And It’s not as if I wasn’t open to being wrong. For example, upon reflection, Lilo being autistic actually does make a good deal of sense, @chaotic-good-milk-hotel made a good argument for why it makes sense to read Lilo as autistic.  We can talk, disagree, have a conversation about this without anybody having an ulterior motive or ill intention because you know...its just people’s head cannons.

2) They immediately go for the throat.  

Again, this is a conversation about somebody’s headcanon that Zuko from Avatar is Autistic.  This is the definition of a conversation that doesn’t need to get mean spirited in the least.  But right off the bat I am hit by “also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness.” Because there is a certain type of person who really conflates any disagreement with the worse levels of disagreement.  At the risk of going armchair psychology, I imagine that they want me to be the type of person who thinks Autism Speaks is legitimate, so they can feel more justified by lashing out at me cause you know....anger is addictive.  

3) Massive hypocrisy:

Am I the only one who notices that they are like “I fight against ableism” but continued to mock my spelling after I told them I was dyslexic?  Cause it isn’t really about the issue, the issue is just a way to put somebody else down.  

4) Strawmaning

Here is my original response.  Nowhere in this did I say I wanted to hurt autistics, nowhere did I support Autism Speaks, nowhere did I say that I wanted there to be less autistic representation, yet I am evidently dismissing the entire notion of autistic people being acceptable.  Again: “i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be too”

5) Conflating what is good for you with what is good for the larger movement.

This is the big one I really want to talk about. The rest are more personal gripes, but this is the biggest danger you find in communities for the marginalized: people who take their own personalities and make them into the supposed personality of the community. Throughout the chat leepacey continues to refer to any disagreement with themselves as a disagreement with the movement as a whole.  So if you think “That character is not autistic” by extension you are saying “I think that autistics have no value whatsoever”. In essence “I speak for the autistics, if you speak against me, you speak against autistics.” Hmm, that sounds familiar. Speak. Autism. Autism. Speak. No, it’s not coming to me.

And you can find this kind of really dangerous attitude all the time in marginalized communities, because when you are legitimately oppressed by society, it is really really easy to rationalize all your behavior as just a response to oppression.  When you do good work fighting against obviously evil people, it is easy to see anybody who opposes you as part of that same evil.  And that’s how you end up attacking members of the group you’re supposed to be fighting for.

Criticism does not equal persecution.  There is real legitimate persecution out there, you don’t need to elevate normal criticism to the level of oppression. And once you get into the realm of reading all criticism as persecution, then your movement has begun to attack itself.  

This is the reason I rarely talk about my autism: because this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. The autism “community” which always winds up hurting me more than it ever helps. This person claims to represent autistic people, but they sure as hell didn’t represent me.

Happy April Everyone.

Chat logs are below, if any of you know how I can screenshot them and post them to confirm them as legit, please let me know because I don’t really like asking people just to take me for my word.

Today at 6:22 PMleepacey sent a photoset ✨ happy autism acceptance mo...hi are you autistic? also did u read that screenshotted post at the top of my post before running your mouth? also why do you not want autistic people to have happiness

leepacey: also before you respond saying anything, please know: i don't care about literally anything you could say to me unless it's an apology for interacting with my post

dicecast: I love this "Are you autistic""Before you answer, I am just going to go run on a a ton of preemptive defensive assumptions"But the answer is yes and you're post is just...wrong

leepacey: i get it, you're pathetic and miserable so you want all other autistics to be toohow dare other autistic people make positivity posts

dicecast: or.....ori disagree with the content of you're post  like it is entirely possible that I don't think those characters are autistic without wishing hatred on autistic

leepacey: so just don't reblog it? magical i know

dicecast:atustics*

leepaceyso keep your garbage off my post

dicecast: I didn't want to not reblog it

leepacey*atustics 😂😂😂

dicecast: I thhink people mistake social discomfort with autism

leepacey: nice okay

dicecast: which I think marginalizes autism more.  i'm dylexic dude but kudos for like immediately going for the throat

that level of defensiveness and hyperbolic ad hominem really is a testament to how much you care about people

because you know...it isn't remotely possible I might....disagree with those characters

being labeled as autistic

leepacey: i am autistic and am getting a masters in nonfiction creative writing, writing about myself and my autism. it's literally my life's work, writing about autism positivity as a way of helping the mental health of other autistic people and educating allistics about the traits of autism. but yeah; i'm spreading misinformation about autistic traits because god forbid people don't see us all as nonverval five year olds

dicecast: I wasn't aware that assuming i hate autistic people is spreading the message positively

Also, and this might be a bit difficult so I"ll go slowely but it is possible that I don't want autistics to be depicted as only non verbal 5 years olds

AND...

wait for it

I still disagree with some of you're choices on the list

leepacey: this post is made to help the mental health of autistic people. it's not meant as a definitive guide to autistic traits. i went through tags finding the most popular autistic headcanons, and compiled them on one post, because the beginning of april can be a very negative and triggering time for people because of autism speaks.

dicecast: like those don't contracit each other

leepaceyshut up for five seconds god you talk too much

dicecast: oh no....i write fast, how bloody terrible

now i actually agree that april can be triggering time for autistics and I hate autism speaks because they are awful

leepacey: yeah, hence the existence of my *positivity* post

dicecast: but again....i disagreed with you're choice of character

I don't think some of those characters autistic...and you're solution is to basically say i'm a self loathing autistic person....

leepacey: and you're still under the assumption anyone cares ?

dicecast: because I disagreed with you're choicesleepaceyokaydicecastwell I clearly got under you're skin...again, this is a major overreaction

because disagreeing with you

you specifically

isn't hating autistic peple

unless you are the autism pope I suppose

leepacey: my post has like 11k notes of autistic people saying how much this post means to them, and then a couple people like you (usually allistics) being like no!!! these characters aren't autistic!!!!! wah wah!!!! like how dare a post make autistic people happy, right? you're the one who decides if headcanons are okay or not

dicecast: The fact that you can't distinguish between "I don't think these characters are autistic" and "I don't think autistic people should be happy" says a lot more about you than 11k responses

cause you know...I didn't say autistic shouldn't be happy

Now we can have a reasonable conversation about if Zuko is autistic or notread into various scenes and talk about autistic representation

leepacey: that's the thing i keep trying to repeat to you: the post exists to make autistic people happy. you think that i'm so wrong to say these characters are autistic, as if it's some crime to humanity that i say "hey maybe prince zuko is autistic :D" like that's some crime against humanity

dicecast: Disagreeing with you is a crime against humanity?

leepacey: sarcasm, sweetheartnice reading skillzi'm done hear. go back to reddit, troll {and then they blocked me} -------

Note: I think it is pretty obvious that they thought I wasn’t autistic and were totally prepped to go into a whole “You aren’t autistic you can’t speak” spiel and then just got all huffy and ran off when they realized they didn’t actually have that particular gun in their arsenal.

And I want this duly noted...they messaged me. I didn’t go to them. Opening up with “Fuck you and I don’t care what you have to say” and then blocking me. Classy.

[Post edited by randomshoes, who is very angry because someone was very very nasty to her friend and he’s upset and she can’t do anything about it other than pick for typos. What you say to people matters.]

[atheism-populism-egalitarianism]

*yawn* ok I gotta get ready for work so ima make this simple for you:

1. Yes it can. There is zero proof of spirits or magic. Therefore it's not real. And I will not take it seriously, and you cannot make me, unless you prove it's real. that doesnt make me an asshole, it makes me logical.

2. Makes zero sense but go ahead and cite examples of how I'm the pot calling the kettle black on this one. Guessing you didnt read it.

3. I just said I'm protesting psychos and you say "you're generalizing people!!!" Like...no I'm not. I have 100% always just been against the psychos. I have never attacked the casuals. You're literally arguing against shit I didnt say and outright ignoring the shit I say that proves that I dont believe what you're arguing against? Like, you are arguing against the OPPOSITE OF WHAT I JUST SAID. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOURE DOING. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOURE READING?!?!?! HONESTLY?!?

4. I have facts baby face. You just ignore them because then it's easier to paint me as a monster. Please. Please. I'm begging you to go through my posts, find a piece where I critique religion and not one where I am defending myself from pro theists, and debate me on it. Please. I'm begging you.

Also, no, I am not a victim. Never said I was. I asked you to use your logic against what happened to me and you came to the conclusion on your own that I was a victim. So good job admitting that im actually the one being harassed by accusing me of calling myself a victim, which I never did, i just pointed out what I've gone through and you came to the conclusion that what I've gone through would make me a victim. Good job.

Lol. I run a debate blog. I say I'm "right" but I never say I "shouldnt be criticized" ever. I have never ever fucking said that, alluded to it, or asked for it.

I have, however, said a million times that "I dont care if you disagree with my views. By all means, criticize me, point out my hypocrisy, destroy me with facts. But actually debate what I say and stop strawmanning me. Debate what I actually say. Stop twisting my words. Stop accusing me of shit I've never said. Debate what I actually say."

You're making shit up. Literally making shit up. None of you can actually cite examples of me being hateful, bigoted, closed minded, or saying that criticism of my views is wrong. You're just making that up. Anyone who READS my blog and doesnt skim through it, and I mean really read, word for word, without saying "well she feels this so that means this thing that she never said" knows that. And guess what. That includes religious people. Plenty of religious people read my blog and say, "hey. These people really are strawmanning her."

Friendly message to theists:

I don’t hate you. Trust me I don’t. I pity you. It’s really sad to watch you all devote your lives to lies. It really is. I used to be just like you, I know what it’s like. I know how scary letting go of archaic ideas can be. But trust me when I say it’s much better here. It really is. And it will be a lot nicer once you join us.

[aslightstep]

19 - Winteriron

I’m not their hero/But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t brave

This is honestly a little bit away from the prompt.

Song is:

I’m Not Your Hero

“Take a trip with me,” Tony says, collapsing on top of him, grabbing the remote out of his hand before Bucky can stop him and turning off the TV, cutting Megyn Kelly off mid-sentence on another one of the seemingly endless roundtable discussion on the Winter Soldier’s place on the Avengers roster.

At this point Bucky is pretty sure he can do an accurate impression of both sides of the debate. Bucky the Victim vs Bucky the Assassin. Rarely, they get creative and add in the ever popular (and Bucky’s personal favorite) Bucky the poor unstable woobie, those brave Avengers for taking him in, I hear Tony Stark’s dating him, how precious, now lets keep him away from the weapons but no need to lock him up, of course!

(It’s rarely used because its hard to sum the position up in a snazzy caption, you see. Tony calls it the ‘Bucky the Dog’ argument. ‘You’re like a rescue,’ he’d explained. ‘Apparently we need to feed you, house you, but not let you out because you’ve been raised badly and don’t know any better, and might go gnawing off some poor kid’s arm for looking at you the wrong way.’

Tony hated Bucky the Dog.)

“Ignore the crazies,” Tony wheedles. “Pay attention to me.” He makes grabby hands that Bucky grabs up and uses to drag his boyfriend closer. “So take a trip with me?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to take a trip?” Tony says, affecting an innocent expression. “Because the Tower has access to too many 24 hour news channels? For the opportunity of new and exciting places to have sex? Bucky! Stop with the patient eyebrows.” Bucky mouths ‘patient eyebrows’ to himself, shaking with laughter. “It’s a surprise.”

“Oh, God,” Bucky groans. The last ‘surprise’ of Tony’s was a cake filled with strippers. For Natasha.

Tony seems to read his mind and points an accusing finger at him. “You cannot deny that was amazing and she loved it.”

Natasha had loved the strippers. She knew at least eight new ways to bend now.

“Alright,” Bucky agrees, and accepts his boyfriend’s gleeful, slightly sloppy kisses with a smile.

“It’s not an argument of what James Barnes deserves, that’s a complete strawman. It’s a question of what he can handle. The man has had an incredibly difficult life, one that’s produced well documented instances of PTSD and dissociative attacks. This is not a man equipped to handle the kind of stress the Avengers are put under every day-”

“He was a monster, plain and simple. And maybe we can believe Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers here, maybe the monster has been taken out, but what kind of scars did that leave-”

“I mean, in all honesty, how can he ever be trusted? How will we ever know?”

“Hey.” A foot kicks at his own, knocking Bucky out of his miserable recollections.“I know that face. This plane is a That-Face Free Zone.”

He kicks back at Tony. “It’s nothing, Punk,” he says, mustering up some semblance of a smile. It just makes Tony grimace, then crawl over so he can sit beside him.

“How ‘bout just no faces at all?” he asks as he settles. “For a former super spy you have horrible facial control.” Bucky stiffens up beside him and Tony sighs, taking his hand. “James.”

James. That’s all its ever taken from Tony. His name, said in that fond, slightly impatient tone. “James,” Tony had said, finding James in the aftermath of a panic attack that had ended in the destruction of his living room. “James,” he had said when he built a new arm and the first thing Bucky did with it was play fetch with the bots. “James,” he had said when Bucky had finally surrendered and kissed him. “What took you so long?”

Now Tony sits with him, patient, staring out the window so James feels distinctly unenclosed. He hadn’t been like this at the start of their relationship and its nice, sometimes, to think that Bucky has taught him some things, too.

“They’re not wrong,” he finally says, and Tony takes that as his cue to finally turn and look. “The news. I’m a complete mess three days out of five. I remember all of it, everything I did, so it’s all still there in my head. I can’t be trusted.”

“I trust you,” Tony responds immediately. “Am I an idiot?”

“No.”

“No, James, I am very smart.” Bucky smiles painfully and Tony clenches his hand. “Look, you being an Avenger? That’s always your choice. I’m sorry if we’ve pressured you-”

“You haven’t-”

“Oh, we totally have. Especially Steve. But you’ll need to discuss that with him. As for the rest - those vultures have only ever seen skin-deep, trust me on this. If I listened to them, let them dictate my life, I’d’ve ended up face down in a ditch bleeding Patron by the time I was twenty five.”

Bucky pulls his hand away so he can wrap his arm around Tony and hold him close. “You hate tequila,” he mutters, and Tony laughs.

“See? They don’t know anything. All they saw of me was a drunken overgrown fratboy and all they see of you is the Winter Soldier. Thing is, yeah, they’re not wrong every once in awhile, but they never have all the story. The Winter Soldier is not everything you are. You’re Buck, you’re James, you’re Sergeant Barnes.

“And by the way, you’re only a mess two out of five days. At most. The other three?” Tony smiles at him. “You are the best, the bravest man I have ever known.”

“Jeez, Tony,” Bucky breathes, because he never knows what to do with these pep talks. He wants to believe him, but he is constantly surrounded by heroes nowadays, and he is always reminded of his bloody past and how painfully he falls short, how impossible it seems to ever come back from that, even when he sleeps every night next to a man who did just that. He drops a kiss on Tony’s head and leans back into the chair. “So where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise, Buck. A surprise. Your dementia is showing again, old man.”

“I’ll show you old-” Bucky tips his boyfriend over in the seat.

“Oh God, I’m so glad you believe in stubble-”

“Believe? Facial hair’s not like Santa Claus, doll-”

“James.”

They touch down in Washington, DC. Tony takes them to a hotel first to freshen up, which for some reason means busting out the baseball caps and shades for both of them. Then they hope in a car that drops them off at the Mall. Tony leads them to the National Museum of American History and Bucky stops dead.

“The Smithsonian? Tony, I’ve been here before…”

“Yes. When you had just broken your brainwashing. Somehow I’m thinking you weren’t exactly absorbing all that you could.” Tony looks at the ground, the space where Bucky has taken a step backwards, and grabs his hand. “I just wanted you to see something, but we can leave.”

Bucky stares up at the building. The last time he’d been here was a blur of memories without context and a constantly building terror at what had happened to him. He had been scared. But Tony is with him now. “No, I’m fine. Show me.”

The Captain America is as busy as ever, and this time Bucky notices how many of the exhibits bear a tiny inscription under the description: Donated by Howard Stark and the Stark family.

Tony smirks when he notices where Bucky’s gaze is lingering. “Yeah, let me tell you there is nothing quite like meeting the men your dad quite literally collected.” Bucky waits for a moment to see if his smirk goes sharp and sad, but Tony just wanders on. He’d let go of his anger about Howard around the same time he’d let go of his anger towards Bucky.

They stop in front of the glass wall bearing his name, date of death (which bears a new addendum in tiny print of his miraculous recovery in 2016), height, serial number, rank, and a summary of his life. 

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Tony murmurs.

“Five hundred words or less,” Bucky says. He doesn’t mean to sound as bitter as he does, but Tony just smiles sympathetically at him and takes his hand, leading further.

They pass wall after wall of Steve Rogers, Captain America, Brooklyn’s Favorite Son, and American Legend. Bucky can see where the facts have gotten muddled: for example, he knows for a fact that the assault on the HYDRA base on the border of Luxembourg was planned by Dugan, not Steve, and was a smashing success, but facts rarely stand up to myth. “Bet Steve hates that.”

“He does. We’ve been petitioning to make them get their asses in gear and change that for years,” Tony groans lowly. 

Tony tugs him further, further into the exhibit, a part Bucky never visited before, too skittish about lingering last time. There is a wall with a long line of booths cordoned off by black curtains. The Howling Commandos: From the Other Side, a banner reads overhead, and Tony leads Bucky into one. They squeeze onto a seat, Tony puts his arm around Bucky, and then he presses play.

An old man appears on screen, looking to the side as if listening to someone. He nods, and chuckles. “My name is Peter Montcourt,” he says, his French accent extraordinarily thick. “I was nine years old when the Howling Commandos liberated the town of Bayeux from Axis control. My hometown.”

“I had lost a brother, a father, already. My town was overrun with Nazis, Italians. People disappeared during the night, never heard from again. Everyday we heard - it might be you. You might be next.

“Then one night we heard gunfire and explosions and I remember thinking that this was it, they had grown tired of watching us, now they were killing us all. A soldier burst into my house with a gun, and I stood over my mother, but the shot never came. He was gunned down.

“I never met Captain America. Steve Rogers did not liberate Bayeux. He was leading another push. Bayeux was liberated by-”

“It was me,” Bucky breathes, tears in his eyes as he remembers, and Tony’s hand smooths down his arm.

“Sergeant James Barnes. The same James Barnes who gunned down the man who wanted to hurt us. He came into our house after that, he told us who he was and that he was a sniper, and asked us kindly if he could take a position in my room upstairs, because it had good sightlines. We of course agreed. He told us to hide, but I stayed and watched him. He remained calm, and efficient. He never panicked. He was very brave.

The man grows a little teary-eyed. “People do not talk about Bayeux much, because the very same day Captain Steve Rogers freed a POW camp near Lyon. But I do not forget. None of us in this town do. We owe Sergeant Barnes and his men our lives. I was very sorry when he died. He was a good man.”

The video freezes and Bucky lurches forward, pressing his hand against Montcourt’s face. “He grew up, James,” Tony whispers. “Had a family. All because you saved him.”

“I’m not him,” Bucky says hoarsely, tears nearly blinding him. “I’m not the sergeant.”

“Mm. But he is a part of you.” Tony intertwines their fingers. “I just…I wanted you to see, know, I guess, that you are…more than the Winter Soldier. More than whatever they call you. That there’s as much greatness in you as darkness. You were a good person, Buck and…we can’t all be war heroes. Sometimes we’re just victims. It doesn’t diminish you or what you did or what you can do. I’m - shit, I’m sorry, I’m so terrible at this. I just thought you should see.”

Bucky is quiet for a very long time, staring at Montcourt. He remembers that little boy and his mother. He had remained in their home for three days, defending it and taking out enemy soldiers. The woman had brought him food that he never ate. The boy kept him awake with conversation. They had been the brave ones.

He withdraws his hand and places it over Tony’s. “Thank you,” he tells him, and the other man smiles tentatively. “I - I get it.” He isn’t the Soldier or the Sergeant. He’s just Bucky now, with shades of all of them thrown in, but maybe…maybe that isn’t so bad. At the very least, he remembers how to be strong and good. And if he needs a reminder, he has Tony and Steve and the Avengers.

They don’t get to decide what he is or isn’t. Only Bucky does that. And he doesn’t have to be a hero. He can just be…an Avenger.

“Are there more?” he asks, gesturing towards the screen. Tony’s smile goes full-blown and Bucky can’t help it, leaning forward to kiss him soundly. “I love you.”

“You, too,” Tony replies softly, pulling away. The moment goes soft and sweet for a moment, but that was never Tony’s particular style and sure enough he pulls away, his grin going positively wicked. “Ninette three booths down tells a charming story involving you, her, Dugan, my dad, two goats, and a modified washing machine. I would love to hear your version of it.”

Outside the booth an old man is waiting his turn with his wife. He steps aside for Bucky and Tony but freezes dead when he catches a good glimpse of Bucky’s face, looking back over his shoulder at the Barnes Memorial for a moment before turning back. Bucky freezes when the man raises his hand, but he merely salutes.

Bucky returns it, sloppily, then heads for Tony, who has been lowly calling his name: “James.”

[theconservativebrief]

August 28 is not a day that is particularly known for feeling especially crisp or autumnal in most parts of North America. And yet it’s the day in 2018 — the earliest release date so far — that Starbucks chose to ready its blazing orange jugs of “pumpkin sauce” and unleash its annual run of pumpkin spice lattes upon its customers.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking this tone for one of disdain. Since its inception in 2003, the pumpkin spice latte has become something of a strawman for discussions about capitalism, seasonal creep, and the meaning of “basic,” resulting in widespread hatred for an otherwise innocuous beverage.

For example, back in 2014, at the height of pumpkin spice mania, this very website described the PSL as “an unctuous, pungent, saccharine brown liquid, equal parts dairy and diabetes, served in paper cups and guzzled down by the liters” — even though clearly the pumpkin spice latte is a highly delicious treat that pairs well with wearing vests and making dorky comments about how crisp the air feels today. Yes, it contains 380 calories; yes, it will make your coffee a rather unappetizing orange color; no, you should not “guzzle it down by the liters.”

But contempt for the PSL and other items of the seasonal pumpkin spice variety is often not really about the flavor itself. After all, there are plenty of other flavors we should all be way more furious about. (There is a shop in Scotland that serves mayonnaise ice cream, people!) Too frequently, it’s about sexism, class anxiety, and our collective skepticism of savvy marketing.

The pumpkin spice latte almost didn’t exist. As former Starbucks veteran Tim Kern told Quartz, “A number of us thought it was a beverage so dominated by a flavor other than coffee that it didn’t put Starbucks’ coffee in the best light.”

Fortunately for Starbucks, the Tim Kernses of the company were ultimately overruled, because within a decade of its launch in 2003, the PSL became its top-selling drink, with more than 200 million of them sold. In 2015, Forbes estimated the PSL brought in around $100 million in revenue over a single season.

2015 was also the year that Starbucks changed its decade-old formula to include actual pumpkin for the first time, rather than simply caramel coloring and pumpkin pie spices (like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves). By all accounts, it tasted pretty much the same, just, according to its inventor, “cleaner.”

At that point, the PSL wasn’t just a cash cow: It was a cultural phenomenon. In part, that’s thanks to its marketing — there is nothing inherently seasonal about the spices that go in pumpkin pie, but Starbucks is able to convince us that the drink should only be drank during the fall months, thereby increasing demand.

But there’s another reason why the PSL exploded so much over the past decade. Culinary food trend analyst Suzy Badaracco told Vox back in 2014, “Pumpkin became recognized as part of the comfort food trend during the recession in 2008,” due to its association with Thanksgiving and the holidays. In tough times, we’re more likely to crave foods that bring back happy memories.

Surely, though, the reason we all began talking about PSLs to begin with was their prevalence on social media. It’s not that they’re inherently photogenic — a Starbucks cup is a Starbucks cup regardless of what’s inside it, and the PSL doesn’t get its own special design like the holiday drinks do.

It’s because when you add a PSL to a photo of, say, your new fall boots standing atop crunchy-looking leaves or a selfie featuring a festive dark lip color, it adds to the autumnal aesthetic. It’s not a coincidence that Instagram — the epicenter of cutesy fall tableaus — happened to blow up in the early 2010s, which is the same time that it became cool to claim you despised pumpkin spice.

But maybe that’s not the whole story.

The fact that the pumpkin spice latte — which, to many, conjures the scents and imagery of Thanksgiving — is released in increasingly hot weather year after year is often touted as an ominous harbinger of the evil forces of seasonal creep. “It’s agricultural revisionism!,” argue some, citing the fact that pumpkins aren’t actually in season until autumn proper.

A viral John Oliver clip from 2014 declares as much, noting that “that bottle of pumpkin-flavored science goo sits behind the counter of Starbucks, never aging, like Ryan Seacrest:”

[embedded content]

The success of the PSL is also largely responsible for the barrage of pumpkin spice-flavored everything else, from cream cheese to dog treats, Kahlua, to an especially wacky seasonal crossover, Peeps. There have also been air fresheners, deodorant, even Four Loko (okay, that one ended up being a joke), resulting in the expected amount of hand-wringing about a food trend “gone too far.” (Indeed, back in 2010, spice brand McCormick forecasted that pumpkin spice would be a popular flavor for the holiday season, which in turn likely exacerbated the rush.)

When a food trend is as in-your-face as pumpkin spice is — ever been to a Trader Joe’s in October? — it forces us to think about how the free market is essentially designed to create this kind of phenomena. If a product like the pumpkin spice latte sells, it’s natural under capitalism for other companies to attempt to replicate that success. But it’s uncomfortable when we see it happening on such an exaggerated scale.

Well, maybe, but maybe what pumpkin spice backlash is really about is our dismissal of trends that are coded as feminine. As Jaya Saxena wrote in Taste last fall, in a piece titled “Women Aren’t Ruining Food,” “When men enjoy something, they elevate it. But when women enjoy something, they ruin it.”

She continues, on the topic of “girly” food crazes like açai bowls, rosé, and pumpkin spice versus “manly” ones like barbecue, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and IPAs:

When those foods blow up, we judge women for falling for the marketing or trying to jump on the bandwagon, and we assume that because they like something other women like, they don’t have minds of their own. And on top of that, women are asked to reckon with, consciously or unconsciously, the perceived psycho-sexual symbolism attached to seemingly innocuous foods.

Plus, “masculine” foods are almost never chastised for being “basic,” the ever-nebulous term used to describe someone with average, predictable taste that’s usually reserved for women.

In the most stereotypical (and by now, probably outdated) terms, a “basic bitch” wears North Face, leggings, and Uggs, and absolutely adores hashtag-PSLs, marking her as a woman with “a girlish interest in seasonal changes and an unsophisticated penchant for sweet,” as the Cut noted back in 2014.

There are often classist implications, too. In a BuzzFeed piece about “basic” and class anxiety, Anne Helen Peterson wrote:

Unique taste — and the capacity to avoid the basic — is a privilege. A privilege of location (usually urban), of education (exposure to other cultures and locales), and of parentage (who would introduce and exalt other tastes). To summarize the groundbreaking work of theorist Pierre Bourdieu: We don’t choose our tastes so much as the micro-specifics of our class determine them. To consume and perform online in a basic way is thus to reflect a highly American, capitalist upbringing. Basic girls love the things they do because nearly every part of American commercial media has told them that they should.

Essentially, hating pumpkin spice lattes is our way of othering those who drink them, and in the process, marking ourselves as decidedly un-basic.

Of course, this notion of what “basic” means is not the same way black people have been using it for decades, which, as Kara Brown explained in Jezebel, pretty much just translates to “I think that the stuff you like is lame and I don’t really like you.”

“Rihanna could become the official spokesperson for Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes and nobody would think of her as basic,” she wrote. “You know why? Because Rihanna does what she wants and what she thinks is cool and doesn’t give a damn about anybody else.”

Even if Rihanna suddenly became the official spokesperson of PSLs, however, there is also the possibility that, quite frankly, nobody really cares that much anymore. We seemed to have hit peak “pumpkin spice hot take” in the year 2014, with searches for “pumpkin spice latte” peaking in 2015.

Plus, the pumpkin spice bubble may have already popped. Analytics company 1010data revealed that, despite the fact that pumpkin spice products for sale had risen by nearly 50 percent between 2015 and 2016, sales went up just 21 percent — we just aren’t craving it like we used to.

Maybe that’s because we’ve all been stricken with a case of seasonal beverage fatigue in general. Starbucks is constantly coming out with random gimmicky drinks, from the Unicorn Frappuccino to the so-called “secret menu.”

If that’s true, it tracks that we aren’t seeing the same kind of anger directed at what is arguably replacing pumpkin spice as autumn’s de facto flavor. In 2017 both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts released maple pecan lattes. And according to restaurant menu data from that year, “mentions of maple as a flavor in nonalcoholic beverages on menus are up 86 percent this year over last … Pumpkin mentions, on the other hand, are down 20 percent.” Yet nobody’s complaining about how dumb maple syrup is.

And these days, tweets about PSLs are way more in the vein of “Screw you and let me enjoy my shitty drink in peace, because everything is terrible.”

Pumpkin Spice Latte comes back tomorrow and I am 100% getting one in 91 degree weather because this world is a shitshow and I take joy where I can get it, like in delicious flavored coffee drinks.

— drunk wynhaught (@drunkhaught) August 27, 2018

People have also expressed exhaustion about the “actually-ing” over what pumpkin spice even is, as if anyone really wants to talk about it.

“pumpkin spice refers to the spices used in pumpkin pie and doesn’t actually taste like pumpkins” is the “Frankenstein was the name of the doctor” of this decade

— Kyle (@KylePlantEmoji) August 27, 2018

There are even ironic tweets poking fun at the automation of feminist responses to the anti-pumpkin spice brigade:

Women’s unabashed enjoyment of a thing has always led to wholesale dismissal of said thing as frivolous and/or bad. From early examples like needlework to more current cases like pumpkin spice and romance novels, we can track this trend throughout history. In this paper I will –

— The Ripped Bodice (@TheRippedBodice) August 27, 2018

Anyway, this is all to say that maybe now, in the year 2018, pumpkin spice has finally returned to signifying the autumnal blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, and nothing more: not basic, not everything wrong with capitalism, and not gross. Because it’s not! It’s delicious.

Original Source -> Pumpkin spice lattes — and the backlash, and the backlash to the backlash — explained

via The Conservative Brief

[0strawberry-kat0]

I met a racist idiot on Shamchat

This is a conversation between Is Trump racist? and Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Yes Is Trump racist?: How? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Yes he is Is Trump racist?: How is he? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He acts like he loves people from different countries, but calls Middle Eastern people terrorists And wants to build a wall between Mexico and the United States Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: after he said he 'loves Mexicans' Is Trump racist?: How is that racist? Is Trump racist?: Building a wall is racist? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Get educated, dumbass. Is Trump racist?: Like Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: i just told you why Is Trump racist?: You haven't given a reason. Is Trump racist?: A wall isn't racist Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: he wants to make them pay for it??? Is Trump racist?: It's to keep illegals out Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: how is he going to get them to cooperate Is Trump racist?: Mexico is kinda responsible for the amount of illegal flooding into our country Is Trump racist?: I doubt they will pay for it. Is Trump racist?: But still. Is Trump racist?: forgot the s Is Trump racist?: illegals* Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: are you defending this jackass Is Trump racist?: Argumentative ad-hominem? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: So my question is do you support him? Is Trump racist?: That's irrelevant to the topic Is Trump racist?: You still haven't given any good reasons to how he is racist. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Wow okay hold on Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I have to pick there are so many reasons. Is Trump racist?: Then give me one. Is Trump racist?: Or look it up? Is Trump racist?: Because I have a feeling that's what you're gonna do. Is Trump racist?: Because you don't know, but you want to be right Is Trump racist?: So you go onto tellmeimright.com to get some reassuring strawmans about possibilites of racism Is Trump racist?: Even though there is no actual proof. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: you know what, I don't have time to get into arguments with uneducated people like you. If you can't see with your own eyes that Trump is racist you are fucking blind. Is Trump racist?: lol Is Trump racist?: called it Is Trump racist?: Please educate yourself. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person. Is Trump racist?: Maybe instead of changing the facts to fit the theory Is Trump racist?: Change the theory to fit the facts Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Where are your reasons why he's not racist? Is Trump racist?: Burden of proof Is Trump racist?: You made the claim Is Trump racist?: You back it up Is Trump racist?: Dumb cunt Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Answer me that. Is Trump racist?: Burden of proof Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Wow, you even sound like him. Give me the damn proof because that isn't good enough. Is Trump racist?: You're literally only using logical fallacies Is Trump racist?: You don't have an argument at all. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Which is better than being blind. Is Trump racist?: If you can't prove he's racist Is Trump racist?: Who's the blind one? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I do, however know that Trump is transphobic. Is Trump racist?: Argumentative red herring Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He banned transgenders from entering the military. Is Trump racist?: Irrelevant to this topic Is Trump racist?: You can proceed to a different topic once you admit defeat. Is Trump racist?: Otherwise Is Trump racist?: I'm not feeding you the satisfaction. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Look. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Trump referred to Mexicans as rapists and criminals. Is Trump racist?: How is he racist? Is Trump racist?: No he referred to illegals as rapists and criminals Is Trump racist?: Try again. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: which is racist Is Trump racist?: No it isn't Is Trump racist?: Illegals aren't a race. Is Trump racist?: You fucking tard. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: yes it is. How is it not, Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He then tried to back up by saying he loved Mexicans, but He still wants to build a wall Is Trump racist?: Because he specifically said he was not talking about Mexicans Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Yes he fucking was you eneducated cunt Is Trump racist?: He was talking about illegals Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: which Is Trump racist?: No you dumb fuck. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: is Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: racist Is Trump racist?: He wants a wall Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: racist* Is Trump racist?: Because illegals keep coming into our country Is Trump racist?: Does not mean he dislikes Mexicans as a race. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/ us_584f2ccae4b0bd9c3dfe5566 Is Trump racist?: It's a threat to our economy and national security Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Fucking read it Is Trump racist?: OH MY GOD Is Trump racist?: I FUCKING CALLED IT Is Trump racist?: YOU LINKED A HUFFPOST LINK Is Trump racist?: HOLY SHIT THIS IS GOLD Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: i used a source. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: You are a fucking jackass. How about you get yourself educated? He instituted a law that makes it so that Muslim women have to take off their hijabs in airport security. Most of all he's sexist. Is Trump racist?: Jesus Christ this is hilarious. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Fuck you Is Trump racist?: lol idgaf Is Trump racist?: Muslims aren't a race Is Trump racist?: And uhhhh Is Trump racist?: More red herrings? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: nope Is Trump racist?: Stay on topic sweetie Is Trump racist?: Tell me how Trump is racist. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Dont you dare call me that Is Trump racist?: k bud Is Trump racist?: Tell me how Trump is racist. Is Trump racist?: I've found a common thread among all the people I've been talking to about this Is Trump racist?: More specifically all the people who say he is racist Is Trump racist?: And it's that they will not give any actual reasons yet will imply that I'm the stupid one. Is Trump racist?: It's amusing. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He ordered a background check in Barack Obama because he didn't believe he was American. Why? His skin color. Tell me that isn't racist, and give me a reason. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: On* Is Trump racist?: And his middle name was Hussein Is Trump racist?: His parents were Muslim Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Thats fucking racist. Is Trump racist?: I mean hell even I had my suspicions Is Trump racist?: Nah, it's rly not. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Well that's racist Is Trump racist?: Muslims aren't a race. Is Trump racist?: lol Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: anyone with a brain would know that he's from Hawaii. Is Trump racist?: Uhhhhh Is Trump racist?: ok Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: apparently you don't have one. Is Trump racist?: idc Is Trump racist?: Once again Is Trump racist?: Argumentative ad-hominem Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I just gave a reason. I backed it up. Is Trump racist?: Do you have an argument or is it just logical fallacies? Is Trump racist?: I already debunked it. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I just gave one. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Not really. You can't debunk something with opinions. Is Trump racist?: It's not to due with the skin color, it's to do with his leniency for Muslim extremism and the fact he associated with the Muslim faith. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: WHICH IS RACIST Is Trump racist?: Muslims Is Trump racist?: Aren't Is Trump racist?: A fucking Is Trump racist?: Race Is Trump racist?: Jesus Christ you're dense Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Im smarter than you, obviously. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Its racist towards middle eastern people. Is Trump racist?: whatever you say pal Is Trump racist?: You sure are getting defensive. Is Trump racist?: Am I hitting a nerve? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: You know what? I don't have time to speak with someone who is blind to things that exist around them. Is Trump racist?: Some hidden insecurity? Is Trump racist?: Blind? Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Im not insecure about anything involving this. Is Trump racist?: You had to look up a reason for your argument Is Trump racist?: I already know mine. Is Trump racist?: It's not racist Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: I used a source. Can you give me a reason he's not racist? Is Trump racist?: If anything it's xenophobic Is Trump racist?: You gave Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Answet me that. Is Trump racist?: You gave me Is Trump racist?: a fuckin Is Trump racist?: Huffpost article Is Trump racist?: lmao Is Trump racist?: Holy shit this is gold Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: You are a Fucking idiot. Is Trump racist?: k bud Is Trump racist?: whatever you say pal Is Trump racist?: Also uhhhh Is Trump racist?: Burden of proof? Is Trump racist?: Do you not know how this works? Is Trump racist?: Think of it like this Is Trump racist?: If I say someone is something, I have to back it up Is Trump racist?: I can't just say "Oh yea well tell me how they aren't" Is Trump racist?: That's not how it works Is Trump racist?: Innocent until proven guilty Is Trump racist?: Not vice versa Is Trump racist?: Go to school. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He said the reason why we should build a wall is because he thinks that Mexicans are rapists Is Trump racist?: Fucking yup Is Trump racist?: Wait Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Yup Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He also thinks they'll steal our jobs. Is Trump racist?: I think I can say the whole quote Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Mexicans and illegals. Is Trump racist?: *after being asked about the illegal issue in America* "Mexico isn't sending their brightest, they're sending rapist and drug dealers. I assume some are good people but there's just too much bad things coming from there for us not to take action" Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: He thinks that they, and immigrants and general are going to steal our jobs. If someone is born in America, they have a right to a job in America. How bout you go to school and stop looking things up. Is Trump racist?: You're whole argument revolved around a straw man Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: you just fucking proved me correct. Is Trump racist?: No I didn't Is Trump racist?: He doesn't like illegals Is Trump racist?: tf Is Trump racist?: I said that from the start Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Which is racist Is Trump racist?: Hell I don't like illegals Is Trump racist?: How Is Trump racist?: Tf Is Trump racist?: Is that racist Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: You know what, stop talking Is Trump racist?: No Is Trump racist?: Tell Is Trump racist?: Me Is Trump racist?: How is that racist Is Trump racist?: If someone comes ILLEGALLY into your country Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: youre lowering the Iq of the entire street. Is Trump racist?: Gets free benefits without contributing to society at ALL Is Trump racist?: Then yes Is Trump racist?: I hold resentment Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: WE OFFER ASYLUM TO THE PERSECUTED Is Trump racist?: Not all Mexicans are illegal you dumb fuck Is Trump racist?: You're racist Is Trump racist?: You racist fuck Is Trump racist?: You're saying all Mexicans are illegal Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: no I am fucking not. Is Trump racist?: That's racist aaf Is Trump racist?: af* Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: My family is a family of immigrants from Italy and Ireland. Is Trump racist?: We do not allow illegals to come into America Is Trump racist?: That's why they are called Is Trump racist?: Illegals Is Trump racist?: How can you be this fucking stupid. Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Youre the one calling all immigrants illegal. Is Trump racist?: No Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: you know fucking what Is Trump racist?: I'm not Is Trump racist?: I called the illegal ones Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: yes you are Is Trump racist?: Illegal Is Trump racist?: Actual immigrants are fine Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: youre Ann using Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: ammusing* Is Trump racist?: Idgaf about actual immigrants Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: im posting this on Tumblr Is Trump racist?: FUCK Is Trump racist?: GODDAMNIT Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: have fun being famous Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: your an idiot Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni:Haha Is Trump racist?: honestly Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: yup Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: this is gold Is Trump racist?: But honestly Is Trump racist?: It's not Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: the liberals on Tumblr will eat you up Is Trump racist?: It's like Is Trump racist?: You act retarded Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: have fun being proved wrobg Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: wrong* Is Trump racist?: Someone treats you the correct way you treat a stupid fuck Is Trump racist?: then you're all like Is Trump racist?: "Ah ha, it was all a trick." Is Trump racist?: Like that doesn't make you not a stupid fuck Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: Hes oppressive, Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: give me reasons why he's not Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni: lol bai Is Trump racist?: ugh Reicheru Ketsuekineko-oni has left the conversation. (Reicheru was me)

[atheism-populism-egalitarianism]

I'm screaming yall are so fucking stupid lol k

@nevsky-shit

1. Nice strawman, you petulant child. Lol.

2. So because I'm criticizing bad religious people I deserve to be attacked? You literally said i act like bad religious people...how? By never painting theists with a single brush? By acknowledging the different groups of atheists and theists? By acknowledging that religion as a whole is authoritarian? By recognizing the facts about the USSR? By standing by my opinions and backing them up with facts and never saying anything hateful ever? And you cant cite a single example of me being so?

My opinion is the best one and I can prove it and have many times. ;)

As for you @luxros

1. It's an appeal towards the anti sjw pro theists.

2. Yeah, I can constantly debate people, this is my debate blog and people CHOOSE to interact with it. Every time theres a problem, a controversy, even this post itself is the result of other people choosing to interact with MY posts and then claiming I'm harassing/bothering/going to/engaging THEM.

3. The fact they take criticism of their ideals as personal offense says more about them than me. Offensive is taken, never given, and its 100% subjective. But you're a feminist, you obviously don't understand that fact.

4. They should respond to facts and if they don't it says more about them than any atheist.

5. Yes it it lol. Just because theists are triggered pussies like feminists doesn't mean I'm not right or challenging them, they're just triggered by it.

6. That's cool, idc about the USSR because it was all authoritarian and communist based. they tore down churches in a failed attempt to demand 100% loyalty to the state. A state religion. A religion that follows the state. A religion is not simply "uwu god" it can be an idea demanding 100% authority over people.

7. "Do you think blah blah" no and I've never stated I have lol. I've never advocated for banning religion, idk why yall ALWAYS FUCKING ASK ME THAT RETARDED ASS QUESTION AS IF IVE EVER ADVOCATED BANNING RELIGION BEFORE. LOL STOP STRAWMANNING.

8. Peoples views need to be disrespected for them to realize their wrong. You're not gonna convince people they're wrong by telling them they're right. Lol. Tf?

9. Nobody is forcing atheism on anyone. No one. Literally zero people are forcing atheism on anyone and I certainly am not.

10. How am I harassing people by simply stating my own opinions on my own blog that people CHOOSE TO READ AND INTERACT WITH. How am I harassing people by responding to people who respond to MY posts and start a debate with me?

I'm not. If anything, yall are harassing me. I am not harassing anyone. You cannot cite any examples of me harassing anyone. You cant cite examples of me going to a religion blog and shitting on all their posts (except in cases where they interacted with me first, giving me permission to go through their blog and reblog their hateful shit, which us pretty much exclusively what I comment on)

11. You're right. Our society isnt great because atheist ideas are constantly shitted on and in many states atheists arent allowed to hold office. It's time we ended the stigma that actually exists around atheists and atheism. Because the stigma is actually real.

I finally get it. Pro theists atheists realize that coddling religious people’s views make religious people easier to control and get them to do what you want.

You’re just as bad as the preachers, especially the ones who you know don’t actually believe what they preach and do it for the money. Arguably, you’re worse.