#also who are all these other white dudes?

[clini-calia]

It's tough. It is.

I'm a 30-year-old transgender man. From ages 16 to 23-ish, I was stuck in the alt-right pipeline, as well. I watched all that stupid bullshit with "feminists getting owned!!!1!" and what the fuck ever else. I think what pushed me towards it was how people on Tumblr used to be upset over EVERYTHING and would belittle me for my masculinity. I remember seeing a post that had a gif of a scene from some anime, I dunno which one, and it was of a naked girl laying down. People were complaining about her breasts not being realistic - it wasn't the size, it was that they weren't sagging or drooping, and that men need to be portrayed with rock hard dicks that never soften or whatever. But I was just sitting there thinking, "She's laying down... lol. Gravity is literally pushing her breasts against her chest, not pulling them down."

Anyway. Posts like that, but they got worse. I've had a lot of people on the left question my gender. "Why would you want to be a man? Women are the better choice." "I don't know why you'd want to do that, why give up your femininity?" I got into a small argument with a woman once on it, basically saying that it felt like trans men weren't really counted much and were largely ignored in the trans community, along with non binary people, who are usually just treated as "Women Lite." She got so angry that she told me, "You probably just wanna be a guy because you're too ugly to get one for yourself."

That's what tipped me over to the right for a bit. Until I realized they cared even less about me and that if given the chance, well. What happened on November 5th would happen, and they'd look for any excuse to strip me of my rights.

For cis, straight, white men it's not so easy to get out of. They're welcomed with open arms, there's no looming threat of having their rights taken away. So the pull of some "brotherhood" is more enticing. I was groomed and sexually assaulted by a man, but I was also sexually assaulted and groomed by a woman. I'll always believe that, no matter what, humans are just humans. White, black, gay, straight, trans, cis, man, woman - humans. And humans can be good, and they can also fucking suck. So I'll never say "all men are trash" or "all women are garbage" or anything like it ever again.

I see men's issues with mental health. I wish they would understand that it's the patriarchy that ultimately fuels those issues, and I wish some women would see how they also contribute to it. I see a lot of younger women these days placing men's entire values on their income, their careers, their appearances, what they can buy for them... I've seen a tweet of dudes just chilling and playing video games, showing off Pokemon cards or some shit and a woman quote retweeted it and said, "Men used to fight in wars. 🙄" Yeah. That'll stop toxic masculinity - tell men they're not real men unless they go to war and give up what makes them happy. Nice...

The patriarchy hurts women by enforcing the idea that they are to submit to men's wishes, stay at home, clean, cook, have babies. That's all women are allowed to experience.

The patriarchy hurts men by enforcing the idea that they are to overwork themselves, abandon any non traditional masculine interests and basic human emotions in favor of that work, and go to fight and possibly die in wars.

These ideals were put into place as soon as different tribes, races, countries and so on realized that, "Oh. There's OTHER types of people, and I want to be the most powerful and rich so they don't take what I have. Hmm. Better make sure women can only spit out plenty of babies and that plenty of those babies are men to be my soldiers and workforce."

If you're a man that supports any of those ideas, fuck you. If you're a woman that supports any of those ideas, fuck you, too. I'm sick and tired of generalizing people. I'm sick and tired of having to give up pieces of ourselves in order to put more money in billionaire's pockets. I'm sick and tired of men being told they're "too feminine" to be a man over being into stuff like sewing, baking, dolls, fashion, cozy games and I'm tired of seeing women being told they're "too masculine" to be a woman for being into coding, mechanical work, FPS games, science and I'm tired of seeing non binary people being told they're too much of one or the other to be non binary.

I'm tired of seeing men put down other men for having a fucking emotion other than anger or goddamn numbness. I'm tired of seeing women put down other women for being more attractive or not attractive enough. Just... stupid, petty bullshit that should have been over and done with decades ago, why the fuck are we STILL here?

It's tough. Because I love men and care deeply about men. But I also don't think we need to baby them and pat them on the back and say, "It's OK that you joined a fascist group of people that openly and proudly call themselves Nazis." And if a man ever tells me or any woman or AFAB person that it's "your body, my choice," I will grab the nearest blunt object I can get my hands on and beat the snot, shit, and blood out of them.

But I do think we need to work harder at not alienating our CIS, straight, white, male allies. We need to stop generalizing everybody and correct our language when talking about people. And we especially need to make it clear that the alt-right only seeks to divide for their own benefit, not for anyone else's. It's money and power that they want. Men, unless you are wealthy, you are just a vote and a pawn to them, nothing else. We need Democrats in the USA to stop rolling over and blowing kisses to Republicans in the hopes that they'll play nice and cut us some slack. It's not going to happen, not in meaningful numbers. And we NEED to crack down harder on alt-right online spaces. I don't give a fuck no more, get rid of that shit, I don't care if it's seen as too extreme or censorship, if you give these dangerous people a place to commune and feel safe with their harmful ideologies, then it WILL spill over into other spaces. And parents of young children: you need to BE BETTER at monitoring what your kids are seeing and doing online. Take it from someone who no-lifes online games: they are going into these spaces and saying heinous, horrible shit. They are being groomed, they are saying slurs and sexually harassing women, they are even seeking sexual attention and guidance from adults and strangers, and some of those adults are sick enough to take them up on their offers. One little trip into a few public instances of games like VRChat will be all the proof you need. I love the Internet, I really do, but I also see how its anonymity has done harm to us and has severely damaged how young people interact with each other, online and offline.

Anyway, sorry that was so long. I've been pissed the fuck off since I saw that Trump "won" the election and this shit has been on my mind for years, just even more so now.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[devilisln-moved]

Omg, Bendis honey just write a screenplay. Jesus fuck is this overwritten.

[ink-the-artist]

forgive me if you've been asked this before or if its annoying, but how did you learn to use colored pencils like that? your art is so special to me.

ty :) I took an art class for a few years where our teacher had us buy prismacolor pencils as one of the art supplies and had us use them kinda like paints, pressing down hard right away and blending the colors together. its not how youre supposed to use them she was just trying to teach us to use color and ig this was more to the point. I picked them up again years after i stopped going to that class just bc they were there and i wanted to play around w them a bit and ended up actually enjoying it when doing it on my own terms lol

[aeolianblues]

was kinda thinking about this when I saw Renee Rapp live recently-- I didn't know her visual vibe, I'd heard a few songs here and there but I hadn't really *seen* her, and her attire at Osheaga was really casual, a jersey (baseball/basketball?) and slacks. And that was so amazing! I couldn't help thinking, the work Billie Eilish has done for how women in pop music are allowed to dress is incredible. Seeing her up there all comfortable you just know that Billie walked in her oversized tops so that Renee in her slacks could run; Billie walked through all the critcisms about how she dressed slobbily and having to assert that she didn't owe anyone a display of skin, so that Renee could be comfortable and unquestioned running up and down the catwalk in front of 10,000 people. How iconic.

And I don't think we even realised at the time how much something as simple as letting Billie dress the way she as a (then-) 17-year-old teenager dressed, could end up meaning for a future generation of women in music.

Obviously there is still way to go, there were weirdos complaining about how 'plain' Dua Lipa's Glastonbury outfit was this year (in 2024!!), l have to ask, are you at Paris Fashion Week?? She is the musical HEADLINER of an entire day of music at one of the biggest music festivals in the world, and you can't grant her the space to exist as an artist, you have to moan about her dress not being excitingly revealing enough. There's work to do, it's still dismal out there. But the space Billie Eilish has created for a most ordinarily-dressed woman popstar is still heartening.

[eyepool]

Male dude [cis/het/white/ADD, if you must know] here.

Men in American society are, overall, pretty damaged. I was a kid in the 1970s when it was, I think, worse; but a lot of the problems persist. Ironically it’s mostly other males doing the damage. If your masculine energy is strong, you get praise but are also pushed into a mindset of aggression and competition. If your feminine side (Anima) is stronger, you get dumped on as a “pussy” and bullied.

(I realize the masc/fem personality dichotomy is simplistic. There are a lot more archetypes than that. But I think this is approximately true.)

It was less of a problem in the old days when society was shaped around this. But now it isn’t so much there’s more an expectation that men and women are equals, and a lot of women are not willing to put up with the bullshit … but a lot of men are still programmed with it and don’t even understand how broken they are.

I was from Day 1 emotional, intellectual, non-competitive, a dreamer. Fortunately my parents were ok with it, but I got a lot of shit for it from other boys starting around age 11. I didn’t get beat up, but I spent years feeling unsafe and despised. Decades later I’m still working on the damage. One result is that I gradually lost interest in male friendships; there’s too much of a pecking order, too little emotional connection or openness. Female friendships can be challenging too, but overall I just like women better than men.

I don’t know what to do about all these stunted men who never developed their emotional intelligence, who see finding a girlfriend as a competition and have a mindset that women are vending machines where you put in compliments and presents and out pops sex. It’s a self-perpetuating problem like the cycle of abuse — it is a cycle of abuse.

“in order to create loving males we need to love males” means teach boys that they can be themselves without being less of a man. it means being encouraging and nurturing of their emotions so they don’t become cold and hateful. it means showing boys, early in their lives, that they have value outside of what our society deems proper masculinity. what it doesn’t mean is that it’s our job to handhold men who see women as walking sex toys through the concept of empathy, and maybe if we’re really really nice to them and don’t say things that hurt their feelings they’ll stop killing us for saying no

[storekn1fe]

the ao3 stats are really such a perfect encapsulation of issues with fandom in general like 1) people refusing to let go of shit books made by a terf bc they were important to them as a kid, 2) an abysmal lack of f/f ships, and 3) an even more abysmal lack of non-east asian characters of color, especially black characters.

[widevibratobitch]

Since we're both as unwell about him as we are I consider you to be someone who knows a fair amount and what do you genuinely think the real James Fitzjames would feel if he saw the Terror's depiction of him? (As in watching the whole show)

HUH good question. first of all i think he'd be a little discombobulated by the very experience of watching a tv show but personally i choose to believe he'd at least be happy he was made into one of the main characters?? and that so many cool and sexy insane people are obsessed with him now <3

having said that. as much as i love show!fitzjames they did nerf him down A LOT. they robbed him of the joyous whimsy that was such a characteristic trait of the real jokester supreme fitzjames (show!fitzjames also has little to no relationship with his irl lieutenant buddies which. sad.)

we also know now that. most probably. he was actually fully english so i can only imagine he'd be Not Pleased about the cairn scene to say it lightly lmao imagine you and your adoptive family making significant efforts throughout your whole life to disguise the fact of your illegitimate birth and then 150 years later some people make a high rating show where they babygirlify you not only spill your secret to the millions of people watching (or secrets, plural, and make you call yourself a fake as a cherry on top lol) but they also get it wrong and make it Even Worse (from a victorian englishman's perspective) like stop guys he's already dead lmfao

having said that. he would have loved the britannia costume and the your nails are a terror line. i know he would.

[moeblob]

sorry for ocs two days in a row have some babies from an adult's life time ago (aka 2005 I believe? is when I made them?)

[tariah23]

Oh brother

[anthropwashere]

THIS but fucking. MBTI. When I was still in the Air Force my... hell, I don't remember his position name. I'm so happy to realize I've brain dumped so much military minutiae after only three years out. Anyway. My supervisor's supervisor. This Master Sergeant (MSgt) was OBSESSED with MBTI. It was literally the first conversation I had with him when he took the position and was doing the rounds to meet all of us. We were working for a 3-letter agency AND working outside our unit in an almost wholly civilian org on top of that, so thankfully we didn't work in the same office, but good christ he took potshots at ANYBODY he ASSUMED was one flavor of alphabet soup or another that he didn't "agree with."

He did, for whatever it's worth, correctly guess my flavor of alphabet soup (I have never ever been able to remember or care what my MBTI is, it's fucking alphabet soup, leave me alone) after a 5-minute conversation. He also, however, failed to notice my far more aggressive and obvious extremely mentally and physically unwell signs thanks to my miserable recent divorce and far more miserable unfolding chronic illnesses that were going to end up with me getting a whole-ass 100% disability rank/pay with Veteran's Affairs and insisted on visiting my shit-ass cubicle EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. to CHAT. USUALLY DISCUSSING FUCKING THE MBTI OF VARIOUS OTHER DUDES IN OUR CHAIN OF COMMAND (COC). THAT I BARELY KNEW THE NAMES OF. NEVER MIND WHAT THEY LOOKED LIKE OR WHO THEY WERE AS LIKE. ACTUAL DUDES. BECAUSE. I MUST STRESS AGAIN. WE WORKED IN A MOSTLY CIVILIAN ORG. SO 90% OF THE MIL FOLK IN OUR COC DIDN'T WORK ANYWHERE NEAR ME. TO THE POINT WHERE I LITERALLY DIDN'T HAVE THE DOOR CODES TO ACCESS WHERE THEY WORKED. AND THE OTHER 10% DID LIKE. ACTUAL INTEL SHIT IN OTHER OFFICES I HAD RARELY ANY REASON TO EVER ENTER. AND THE ONES I DID HAVE REASON TO ENTER WITH MILITARY FOLK IN THEM WERE USUALLY FUCKING INSUFFERABLE. AND I AVOIDED THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. SO. I DID NOT. FUCKING KNOW. WHO HE WAS. EVER!!! TALKING!!! ABOUT!!!!!

Hngh. This is why I try not to think of those awful fucking 5 years of my life. I get caps-lock-y about it. Sorry.

Anyway, this motherfucker like. Trauma bonded? To me? Because of his also miserable recent divorce? And he wanted to fuck me SO HARD while also endlessly ranting to me about MBTI horseshit 60% of every conversation we had (the other 40% and his otherwise normal behavior did actually meet me compatibly on the Normal Human Scale and we got on well, and also he was my supervisor's supervisor so like, I had to be somewhat respectful of his stupid MSgt rank). It was an exhausting fucking. What. 8 months? A full year? MBTI this. MBTI that. Etc. Etc. Etc. ETC.!!!!!!

Anyway the SECOND I said "asexual" he entirely quit talking to me entirely, so I guess that's something.

Secondary anyway birthstone-obsessed people are wild to me. Us March folks got royally fucked over by boring-ass AQUAMARINE and you expect me to take that stuff seriously? Lol

Thirdly anyway I haven't dealt with any hardcore astrology people since high school, but she was my friend's mom and she and her husband were honestly the best role models in my life at that age? To the point my shit-fucking-terrible mom resented her otherwise a-okay positivity in my life for like? A decade?? Hell, she probably still does. It's wild how many times I had to remind my Chronic Gaslighting Bitch of a mom, "I haven't talked to Betty since I was 18, WHAT are you talking about."

Fourthly anyway shout-out to Civilian Megan (whose spelling variation I can never remember on account of having one of those Normal White American Girl names with 50 spelling variations, even with her full name on a paper name plate) who sat across from me and went out of her way to save me from Awkward Lengthy conversations with MSgt MBTI and SSgt Marvel Movies Nerd every goddamn day, she was a real one and I should probably shoot her a 'hi how are you' message on Steam today

“Bat swinging at wasp nest” post but I cannot be nice about astrology people. No you did not find the one good or cute or quirky way to believe the quality of someone’s character is biologically pre-determined. Just because you found a way to not base it on race or ethnicity or gender does not make judging someone’s character on an innate and uncontrolled attribute suddenly teehee fine.

I’m even more baffled by the people going “it’s just fun!” “It’s just a hobby!!” Sure if it was something harmless. It’s not. We are quite literally talking about how you intend to judge, treat, view, respect, and interact with someone entirely differently based on an inherent trait. How are you not aghast? How are you not embarrassed? Why are you so insistent on needing to operate on a hierarchy of pre-determined character judgement?

[redhotarsenic]

Man imagine whining because I called you a moron when you’re in fact being a moron

[grgie]

okay so dnd night recap bc its not 1am and im at my laptop for a change (ive realised i actually hate typing more than like a sentence on my phone) you absolutely do not have to read, im doing this for me and me only lol

so first of all my bus was late! only by like 10 mins but enough to make me 10 mins late and add to my already pretty gnarly anxiety but luckily it was literally fine and honestly im glad i wasnt early and had to sit around awkwardly

id never been inside the board game cafe before, just looked as id walked past with my friend once who was like "this is such a cool place!" and it was SO COZY inside. like PEAK tavern vibes. the staff were all so cool and nice and chatty and i got a free drink >:)

it was an intro/learn to play dnd session, but everyone had some knowledge (either through baldurs gate or larping, i was the only person who had straight up never played an rpg to that extent)

i was def the youngest at the table and one of two women (the other four players and our dm were all men) but it was geniunely a very nice vibe, like everyone else was way more down to rp than i was, and im hoping ill get over myself and get into as the sessions go on

speaking of my character, the dm had 12 prerolled characters with minis we could choose from and i chose a tabaxi sorcerer (a kitty lady :3) and i love her already. she is however extremely squishy and somehow ended up being the only one hit during all the encounters. we also spent like ten minutes discussing whether or not she would have toe (or i guess hand?) beans (she does). i also decided that considering her assigned backstory is she wants to be famous by any means so im playing her like a fantasy wannabe influencer

im now going to be rotating this is my brain for the next two weeks, its a crime i have to wait so long for our next session (also what the hell am i gonna do when this 6 session campaign finishes....)

[faeriekit]

@danaclese The thing is is that Batman, as a publicly popular fictional character, is as old as dirt. Understanding on autism and general public awareness of autism at the time would have been basically in the toilet, so "personalities" like his would have been normalized as just Weird Kids who grew up to be Weird Dudes who never made eye contact and collected action figures or science mags and never left the house. It's normal to draw upon people you know and can recognize for your characters, and I have no doubt that the creators did just that: found the closest personality match for a guy whose entire thing was studying hard enough to kick physical ass and save the city from evil. That guy just...happens to be autistic, which. Dope.

The problem with that is that, A, obviously, the idea of Bruce Thomas Wayne has survived so long that we understand more about mental health and autism now and can recognize many stereotypical traits of the spectrum in this fictional man, but also B, there are entire generations of White boys who personally identify with this man but would never accept the label of autism as anything other than a personal insult to them, which, obviously, means that they would want to reject it at every turn. After all, they can't admire and respect a man with autism. They can't relate to a man with autism. That would mean that something is wrong with them, and that's not what they're looking for in a power fantasy! They just want to see bad guy ass get kicked!!

You know...ableism.

So, I can totally understand why you'd be afraid to talk about Batman possibly being on the spectrum. That being said, I grew up with a bunch of autistic peers and they're all rad, ableists can eat my shorts, and if they want to fight me on it, that's dumb and I have like real problems to worry about in life.

Like finances. And global warming.

It would be a little funny if the only person who knew Batman was autistic was J'onn. No one else. Not Clark. Not Diana. Not Alfred, not Bruce– just one telepathic guy with decent pattern recognition and access to the public enough to expose him to a bunch of different kinds of people.

Also:

Bruce thoughts: I get along with J'onn very well and working with him is an easy task; he understands me without demanding more information or speech from me. These are the benefits of being friends with a telepath.

J'onn thoughts: I have lowered the lights by fifteen percent and stayed within his field of view the entire time and his emotions are— no, that's normal— and his responsiveness has increased based on his level of comfort. Good. Now, if I direct him towards a computer with a keyboard, he'll have something to do with his hands during the conversation...

[kinnoth]

I like everybody else terminally online watched the plagiarism video this weekend

And maybe I'm just coming at this from a perspective of someone who was not exposed to j som before he got exposed but like Jesus fuck what the shit

Plagiarism notwithstanding, that man makes some bogus ass, shit ass claims that on a very basic level just do not pass a sniff test by anyone who knows even a little bit about anything

I mean, the man waxes on longingly about the beautiful aryan nazi bodies to serve the conclusion that US troops volunteered for service to.....prove that it wasn't just the nazis who had perfectly sculpted hairless asses? Is that like......even something anyone thinks smells a little bit true? Like on a basic motivational level, for a nation, for a people, for a single person?

Making claims that the Roman empire was 70% slaves and 30% patricians.........does that even sound correct? Like, even if all you know about ancient Rome is from memes and shit, where are the plebs? You know, the thing we still call people today, when they're acting common and unwashed

The thing about how no songs prior to 1956 made references to kissing....I mean guys.....

And like ......not to like.... But like ..... The man has the charisma of a slow growing fungus. Granted I've only ever seen clips bc by the time I got there, he'd nuked his channel, but like.... I've heard AI voices reading tiktok subtitles inject more urgency and personality into text. J som reads text like he not only doesn't know what he's saying, he doesn't know any of the individual words and how they interact with one another. Like who voluntarily listens to this boring dumbass badly read from a script that has no coherent style tying it together?

Like I know people are gagging for gay rep but fuckin seriously, not only is he a plagiarizing douche who makes shit up wholecloth, he's not even a decent entertainer

Is this what y'all are settling for? Is the bar really that fuckin low?

[pa-pa-plasma]

redditors are so fucking weird, sometimes they don't even know what hill they're dying on all they know is that they're gonna die on it for sure

[technicolorxsn]

watched the new hunger games movie with my mom and aunt today and was looking it up on youtube after to see what other people's thoughts on it were and. I forgot people on youtube are so stupid