#and i hate that there are so many fucking shitty privileged selfish white people who get butthurt over anyone pointing out that our society

[to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky]

i hate having to put on my talking to middle aged middle class white people voice

[gaykarstaagforever]

St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

I've always heard nothing but bad things about this movie, how it is a self-indulgent soap opera about awful 1980s people who never pay for their gross behavior. Everyone says the only good thing about it is the John Parr theme song, which is barely in it. And that wasn't even written for it, it was a triumphant pop-rock anthem written to celebrate a kickass wheelchair athlete.

Which is painfully obvious. Then John Parr just worked the name of the movie into it and shrugged. And everyone loves it. But not the movie, which was financially successful because it had members of the smooth and sexy Brat Pack in it, but critics and studio heads hated it then, and many people hate it now.

I, on the other hand, genuinely really liked it.

For all his many shortcomings, Joel Schumacher knew how to put a good movie together in 1985, and he did here. Technically speaking, it's fine. Artistically shot, well paced, the performances are all high-energy and affecting, and even the screenplay is solid, minus a few lazy strolls into trashy melodrama and plot contrivance. But the characters are well-constructed as unique individual people, the occasional jokes are funny, and everything for the most part feels real and earned and insightful.

So why do people hate it? The simple answer is the same one Joel Schumacher apparently got from reluctant studio heads: these people are fucking awful. They're stupid and selfish and cruel, and when that inevitably blows up in their faces, they pout and whine and throw temper tantrums and beg for money. They're well-off white kids from Washington DC who just graduated from Georgetown, and instead of taking advantage of that, most of them are drug-addled mopes for whom the entire world being open to them is STILL not enough.

And I agree with this character critique. These people suck. The whole movie is them ruining the lives of everyone around them with their bad behavior. I have known people like this, and I don't anymore, because they are frustrating and destructive and what they do puts an unfair burden on everyone else.

...But the movie knows this, and that is, in fact, sort of the whole point? Sure, they don't end up dead or in jail, so maybe they don't get the full brunt of what is coming to them. But they're also all 22 years old. Speaking now as a 42 yo man, people who are 22 are stupid baby-things who ruin everything they touch and will absolutely hate who they were in 10 years. That's called growing up, and the entire point of the movie is to show a small part of that process. They DO learn. They DO grow. Not a lot, but a little. And that's how it is, and was, if you were 22 in 1985.

I don't understand why anyone would hate this. You can hate them, if you want. They're detestable. But a lot of privileged people in their 20s are. And while that doesn't absolve them of their shitty behavior, it's kind of unreasonable to not expect this shit from these kinds of people. They are products of where they come from, and now as legal adults, they have to work through that themselves and come out the other side as better people. It's a gross, stupid, weird, terrible process, and the movie shows a glossy, sappy Hollywood version of that.

And it's not bad, for what it is. I don't know if I'd put it on a Top Movies list or even ever watch it again, but it does what it does well. I even kind of fell in love with these big dumb idiots by the end, because as they learn lessons, they become better people. Or at least, differently bad people. But they are still in the middle of that process. I'm not hostile to it or them, or the movie, about it. I don't know why anyone would be.

It IS a movie from 1985, so it has a lot of "movie from 1985" problems. Sexism, treating stalking as a cutesy sitcom plot with a resolution that rewards the stalker, some SA stuff played for laughs, not quite knowing what to do with the women characters that isn't them constantly talking about the male characters, some awkward stuff about one character maybe being gay that seems like it could get interesting, but then the movie remembers it's 1985 and reveals he is super-straight actually, whew! But, honestly, for this era, it is very mild in this regard. I kept expecting it to go dark and problematic and it mostly doesn't (aside from the goofball "I kind of like being stalked" nonsense). For a movie from 1985, it is very watchable and only mildly offensive to 2024 sensibilities. That alone is a rarity, and a big mark in its favor.

Plus it is fun as a fictionalized snapshot of what wealthy white young adults in Washington DC were up to in 1985. Lots of people in their early 20s smoking like chimneys and desperate to get married immediately to people they barely know. Kind of wild.

Also, while these people all have bachelor's degrees, the ease with which they lose and get new high-paying jobs, seemingly without their degrees even being taken into account, is a shocking vision from the past. Sure, some of this is just unrealistic Hollywood guff. But not all of it. They really would just hire you for the modern equivalent of $1500 a week back then, because you seemed cool and your friend called and said yeah, you totally are.

Computers were only starting to be a thing back then. No one could verify anything, no one kept records of anything, and every job a machine does now was something 4 people needed to do in 1985. What a time.

And these idiots STILL whine and moan and never appreciate it! While doing cheap and plentiful cocaine. Ah, the 80s!

...Also, Young Rob Lowe.

Jesus.

...Also, Jules's insane ugly pink neon gay-ass apartment. That I want to spend the rest of my life in.

I'm not just doing a slur. It being designed by her gay designer neighbor is plot-relevant a couple of times.

Also, this poster...

The bar they hang out at is called St. Elmo's Bar. The St. Elmo's Fire thing (the real phenomenon) is from one scene where a character uses it as a metaphor to make another character feel better about how screwed-up their lives are. Arguably he was inspired to do this because they go to that bar a lot, but the connection isn't firmer than that.

The bar is not called St. Elmo's Fire, is my point. So the heat this summer would be at St. Elmo's Bar, not St. Elmo's Fire. Which isn't a place.

This is a poster for the movie! Did they not watch it first? Yes it matters!

And here, finally, because I have to:

HA HA! I GOT YOU! THIS IS THE DAVID FOSTER LOVE THEME!

...Which is way more prominent in the movie, and is honestly way more its actual theme. You will note how it fits the movie tonally a lot better than that driving synth-rock song about a cool guy in a wheelchair.

[drinkyourfuckingmilk]

The Amanda Heard and Johnny Depp situation makes me so uncomfortable. I agree women can be as vile as men but there are text messages of him threatening to kill her and audio tapes of him threatening to hurt himself and her trying to get him to stop. I personally think they're both abusive and the fact that a mutual abuse case is getting more attention than any abuse case ever (including those that end in men and women's deaths) kind of annoys me. It's two selfish and abusive celebrities. I hate how everyone is highlighting Depp as an angel because he's seen as a treasure and innocent. I hate Heard and think she is a colossal manipulator but feelings towards Depp aren't any different.

1) literally everyone can send text messages or have fantasies of being hurtful to their ex (particularly if that ex was abusive to them) like, I’ve been there. I’ve openly wished death upon shitty exes, and many people I know have been there too. there is a huge difference between expression of ill will and actually acting it out. 

2) he is threatening to hurt HIMSELF, not her. as someone who has experienced abuse in a relationship - sometimes your last resort to receive any sort of genuine compassion from your abuser is to self-harm - its a way of asking for help while trying to reassure yourself that the person you love can still be kind to you to prove to yourself that they really DO love you - thus their abuse isn’t REAL - because to acknowledge that someone you love abuses you is horrifying. [I want to clarify that this isn’t me defending this kind of behaviour, it is extremely unhealthy, manipulative, and shitty to use self-harm as a threat. I wanted to make the point that one instance of fucked up behaviour does not equate to a domestic abuser]. 

likewise, her asking him to stop hurting himself, in light of multiple audio evidence of her admitting to hurting him, is not proof of her innocence. abusers frequently love bomb their victims and can be exceedingly kind, caring and sweet - for a time. its how they get their victims to stay with them - by showing occasional but consistent compassion to keep their victim with them in-between the bouts of violence. 

3) depp IS admired as an actor and has a huge fanbase. that doesn’t make him impervious to abuse - he’s stlil a human who craves love like anyone else. and there is no evidence he was abusive to her except for a few photos of what looks like pimples or makeup-painted light bruising. I work in an emergency department - I know what actual injuries from physical abuse look like and that aint it fam. depp absolutely has issues with substance abuse but addiction, like mental illness, does not often mean you are an abuser but are absolutely more vulnerable to abuse. 

I think many people who assume “they were BOTH abusive” are those who assume men cannot be victims of abuse without provocation due to their own abusive behaviour. it assumes that men are strong and aggressive by default, and thus cannot be passive, vulnerable victims - which is bullshit. the fact is, there is multiple audio evidence of amber admitting to being violent towards him while never accusing him in the same audio of him abusing her. there is also audio evidence that disproves her version of events of episodes of abuse. I sincerely recommend reading the court transcripts, rather than mainstream media. 

not to mention amber heard has repeatedly stated how terrified for her life he has made her, yet in the audio evidence she is dominant, berating, abusive while he is meek, submissive and forgiving. anyone with a history of being abused or anyone with formal training in domestic violence cant listen to those audio tapes without seeing how blatantly abusive and manipulative she is. she’s fucking textbook.  and her attitude in those tapes is not the demeanor of a woman who has been repeatedly abused by a man and is fearful of him. 

and at its core, abuse in relationships is a PATTERN. he has no former accusations of abuse in romantic relationships. his exes have actively defended him. she DOES has prior accusations of domestic violence. if their genders were reversed, there would be no doubt of guilt.

EDIT: also its not just an issue of celebrities. celebrities are, unfortunately, INFLUENTIAL. so male victims of abuse will see that a rich, white, privileged man with substantial evidence of being abused is still disbelieved, and that will confirm to them what society already tells them - that they will never be taken seriously, and that they cannot win justice against their abusers. 

[sisterspooky1013]

Better Than Sex

Author: SisterSpooky1013

Rating: Teen and up

Words: 1666

Tagging: @today-in-fic

Read it on AO3

“Better Than Sex Cake” Mulder read aloud from the menu before looking across the table at Scully with his eyebrows raised in question.

They had just concluded an evening traipsing through an (alleged) actual ghost town, though no signs of ghosts were to be seen. Just a lot of graffiti, dirty mattresses and a used condom or two. Now they were sitting at the first diner they came across, Mo’s Café, and Mulder was considering the sex cake.

“Knock yourself out, Mulder, I’m sticking to coffee.”

“You aren’t curious as to whether this cake is, in fact, better than sex?”

“Well I’m sure it’s better than bad sex, but if it were better than great sex the population would die out because everyone would skip procreating and just eat cake.”

Mulder considered her statement. “Isn’t ‘bad sex’ somewhat of an oxymoron?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you being serious?”

Now it was his turn to look incredulous. “The only bad sex is no sex, as far as I’m concerned.”

Scully shook her head ruefully. “Must be nice to be a man.”

Just then the waitress came by to take their order. Scully requested coffee and dry toast, while Mulder opted for coffee and the aforementioned sex cake. After she collected their menus and retreated to the kitchen, Mulder eyed Scully appraisingly, gaging her mood. Sometimes she was open and willing to talk about things of a personal or private nature, other times she kept her lips as tight as a steel trap. He suspected he might have a chatty Scully on his hands, and didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

“So, if I’m understanding correctly, Scully, there would be a circumstance under which you would choose a piece of cake over sex?”

She screwed up her mouth a little, not in consideration of how to answer the question, but whether to answer it at all. “Depends who the sex is with, I suppose, but yes, I could think of a few times where cake would have been a more enjoyable option.”

“Hm” was his only reply as he sat back against the seat of the booth, absorbing this information.

“Are you saying you’ve never had sex that was subpar enough that cake would have been better?”

He pulled in a deep breath and looked to the ceiling briefly, and she could imagine him running through his mental file of sexual encounters. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Is it wrong that I feel compelled to kick you right now?” She asked, just a hint of playfulness in her voice.

He laughed.“I’m not saying that every single time was Oscar-worthy, but even the worst was still better than some flour and butter.”

“And they say male privilege isn’t real” she deadpanned as the waitress came by to present them with two coffees, cake, toast and a tray of sugar and cream. She mixed the accoutrements into her cup while Mulder sipped his black, followed by a bite of the cake, which looked like a basic white cake with some kind of custard and whipped cream on top.

“This is pretty good, though I can’t say it lives up to its name” he said around the food in his mouth, pushing the plate towards her and holding out the fork suggestively. She took it and stabbed a small bite, meeting Mulder’s eye as she pulled the tines from between her lips. It was good, as most cake is, but nothing to write home about.

“Well?” He asked expectantly.

“Well what? She returned, wiping her finger at the corners of her mouth.

“Is it better than sex?”

She paused before answering, knowing that Mulder was going to keep picking at this until it got uncomfortable. He liked to do that, to see how far he could get her to go before she blushed and demanded they change the subject. He took immense pleasure in making her squirm, and even more in getting her to reveal something personal that he normally wouldn’t be privy to. Sometimes, she had as much fun indulging him as he did in goading her. She wasn’t above sharing something that she knew would shock him, just so she could see the look on his face. She liked that she could still surprise him.

“Not better than all sex, but certainly better than some of the sex I’ve had, regrettably.”

“What would make sex so bad that cake is better? I must know.”

“I think you can use your imagination, Mulder.”

“Come on, Scully, you could be saving some poor woman from ‘worse than cake’ sex with me in the future. Consider it an act of charity.”

She shook her head at him, but couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at her lips.

“Your answer lies in that drawer full of tapes that aren’t yours, Mulder.”

“How’s that?”

“Let’s see, sex starts when the man presents his erection and ends when he ejaculates. The woman howls like an animal no matter what he’s doing, though her orgasm is never mentioned. There is no foreplay. Would you like me to continue?”

He swallowed a mouthful of coffee he’d been holding, afraid he might choke. He’d never heard her speak so openly about sex before, especially not sex she had personally experienced, and though he’d been the one who initiated the conversation he was suddenly afraid he was going to have to walk out of this diner trying to hide a bulge in his slacks.

“Fair enough, Scully, but porn isn’t real. It’s like an action movie. No one actually hangs off the skids of a helicopter mid-air, it’s just fun to watch.”

“I’m glad to hear that you’re aware of that, Mulder, and I would implore you to spread the news to the rest of the male populace.” She punctuated her statement with a loud crunch into her toast.

Mulder’s mouth fell open slightly as he studied her, trying to tell if she was joking or embellishing.

“People really do that? Have sex like they do in porn? Men you’ve slept with?”

She rolled her eyes. “Mulder, if you’re going to sit here and tell me that you have never done that, even as a young man, I’ll have to call BS.”

He put his hands up in defense. “I’m not saying I emerged from puberty as Don Juan, but I don’t recall ever not being invested in my partner’s experience. I’m sure my skills were lacking at the outset, but I always tried.”

She looked at him derisively from under her eyelashes. “Well then, you really should get out there more, Mulder. Share your gift with the world.” Her voice was laden with sarcasm.

He laughed and ran his hand over the back of his neck. “How am I coming out to be the bad guy, here Scully? I’m not the one who gave you a ‘worse than cake’ lay.”

She smiled at him but her tone remained facetious “of course not, you’ve demonstrated that your skills in this area are unparalleled.”

“Damn straight!” He said with a slap of his palm on the table, and they both erupted into laughter.

They held eye contact as the laughter subsided, awkwardness descending over the conversation. He had made reference to the two of them having sex, which was a topic he’d only made innuendo about, never mentioned directly. Trying to break the tension, Scully finally spoke.

“Well, I guess you can see why I don’t bother dating.”

“I guess I can” he replied, swiping the last crumbs of cake off the plate with his finger.

“Why don’t you date, Mulder?” His expression registered surprise. “Or do you? I don’t want to be presumptuous.” She felt a pit in her belly at the idea that he may actually have a secret love life.

“No” he spat out, chuckling a little. “No, I definitely don’t date. It’s just too complicated I guess. I’m kind of a serial monogamist anyway.”

“Really?” Now it was her turn to be surprised.

“Yeah, for the most part. I’ve had a couple flings, but the vast majority of the women I’ve slept with I was in a relationship with. The emotional aspect is important for me.”

She studied him, imagining a version of Mulder who would be so considerate and giving. She didn’t need to imagine it, really, she’d seen it. While he was capable of being selfish and obtuse, he had also been incredibly tender and caring with her on many occasions. He had certainly shown a proclivity towards chivalry; opening doors for her, walking closer to traffic on the sidewalk, helping her into her coat or holding an umbrella for her. The idea that such gestures would extend into the bedroom was logical, but it still set off a stirring in her belly. In what other ways might he be so attentive to her needs? She swallowed the last of her coffee and tried not to think about it. Maybe later, but not here. Not now.

“Well, I hate to state the obvious here, Scully, but I don’t think you’re going to happen across the guy that will give you a 5-star experience if you never put yourself out there.” As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to kick himself; why the fuck was he encouraging her sleeping with other people?

She smiled demurely and shrugged “for now I get my thrills from ghost busting and the occasional slice of really good cake.”

He bobbed his head and smiled back, pulling out his wallet and setting his bureau credit card on the tabletop.

In truth, she had already happened across that guy. He was sitting in front of her at a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere. And while she hoped that she may enjoy that 5 star experience in the future, for now just being in his presence, laughing and seeking the answers to the mysteries of the universe together, that was better than sex.

[transmedicalism-saves-lives]

There’s something so weird about having to apologize for something you can’t control. Like, I promised myself once that I’d never do that, I wouldn’t apologize for how I was born or what I am, just what I do, but here it is. Like I’m supposed to apologize again. I thought when I left social justice and liberalism in the dust that’d end, but it didn’t, and here I am again, hating myself, hating my friends, for things that we had nothing to do with. 

I don’t think I’m owed anything. I don’t owe anyone anything either, but they seem to think I do. That people owe each other so many different things, honestly, fairness, a hierarchy of privileges and oppressions that’s so convoluted that you’ll never be able to get it right, and the only way to be good is to kill yourself. I’m serious, if you try to play the privilege game the only way to win, and stop “oppressing” or whatever, is to die. That’s the end game, because otherwise you’ll always be racist, sexist, homophobic, whatever the fuck it is this time. There is nothing you can do that will make you not those things in their game, because to them, it’s not about what you do, but what you are. You don’t do bad things, you are bad and bad things come out of you. 

There are a million things I’m never going to not be, no matter what I’d have chosen for myself. I’m never not going to be white, trans, the oldest son of a rich man, a natural-born American citizen, dark-eyed, right-handed, a cancer survivor. And some of those things I’d choose easily if I could. Some of those things most people would choose. Some things I would never have selected if I had an option. I always wanted lighter eyes. There’s nothing that I feel like I should be ashamed of there, because I didn’t do any of it, and yet, there’s so much shame and disgust attached to a few of those things, it makes me sick. 

There’s no escaping the shame though, no matter where you go. It’s funny, everyone cares so much about what you are. Every group has signs to tape to you, and taking those signs off feels like lying. It’s like privacy is a violation. Not telling someone every bad thing you’ve ever done or said or thought the first time you meet them is the same thing as assaulting them. Letting someone like you if they don’t know your secrets is rape, even if you never even look at them, so it’s better to make yourself as ugly as possible so that never happens because it’s a choice between that, or telling everyone something you don’t want them to know, or being a monster. Even though you feel sick every time you make yourself look worse, you keep doing it because there’s no real alternative. Or you could lock the doors. Stay in your bedroom forever. Then nobody will ever see you again. But, then, that’s no better than the suicide, is it? 

Maybe suicide is the only option but it’s not one I plan on taking. I’m too selfish for that. Maybe that’s an action I can apologize for. I could do it, I have the means, but I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m not willing to give you that. It’s the right thing to do and something I’m never going to be good enough to manage. I stopped dating, I stopped sleeping with people, and I stopped making myself look half decent though, so at least you get that. Hope it’s enough. Or maybe I don’t, I have no fucking clue, maybe I’m not good enough to take responsibility for myself and I’m creating some imaginary force to blame for every shitty thing in my life and it doesn’t exist. This whole thing is a big guilt trip for someone who never existed. 

It’s funny how pretty the things we aren’t supposed to see are. Red is and always has been my favorite color. 

[savnofilter]

no nuance november!

a/n: which is basically you have a bunch of opinions and dont explain any of em' and let your followers discuss them (much more suited for tiktok sjsnj). i'll be doing it since it compiles with many topics like fandom, racism, lgbtq+, politics and etc. i highly encourage people to do this simply because why not? feel free to send your own opinions n stuff, i wanna know what my followers think!!

disclaimer!! ⚠️ all of these are broad, not pin pointing certain people or situations. even though these are my opinions these were all in fun and have been collected over the years and will change as time goes on. nothing is sugar-coated so thread carefully. feel free to agree or disagree. :)

warning(s): mentions of racism, p*do micro aggression, fetishizing, toxicity, abuse, politics, labelling, mental health, cancelling, fandoms, ages.

key:

iswis = i said what i said, no explanation to that one.

whe = will happily explain.

stop sexualizing gay/m|m/yaoi relationships. it's not only demonizing to the males, it's also very fetishizing. (iswis)

most times /10 yall root for "feminine men" when you really mean white boys and fetishised asian men on social media. (whe)

bullying someone isnt educating. you either cant cope with the fact people have different opinions from you or you have a struggle with things either always never going your way or the opposite. (iswis)

straight people will never have a say in lgbtq+ issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

white people will never have a say in poc issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

poc will never have a say in black people issues. stop inserting yourself. (vice versa but im black and it happens more often to us lol) (iswis)

using the defense, "but black lives matter, right?" when one black person does something bad isnt facts, youre racist. (iswis)

fandom adults need to stop gatekeeping the target audience (demographics) to animes/shows. (iswis)

poc people can be racist. (whe)

even if a certain site was adult doesnt mean that every adult wants to see your porn. either keep it to yourself or tag properly. (iswis)

saying shit like, "im more xyz than you and im not even xyz" is not only disrespectful but disgusting. just because you believe in a popular opinion of a group does NOT suddenly make you a person in it, get over yourself. (iswis)

dont hate on people for the same things you have done at a young age. (ex: writing fanfic, seggs, etc) (iswis)

blaming a minor/someone mentally unstable for being abused is not only victim blaming, but it enables the notion that people who go those things that they wanted it. (iswis)

going off of that last point, if you do victim blame for situations and been in them yourself you either still havent coped with what you went through and still think it was your fault when it wasnt. (whe)

it's stupid people hate minors for being undeveloped when adults are the reason as to why people get traumas, abused and quite literally are destroying the world right now. (iswis)

gen z is white as fuck. (iswis)

early 2000s kids are equivalent to 90s kids who use to post, "only 90s kids under this" and post something that 2000-5 experienced. (iswis)

dear 2005+ kids, abusing harmful substances and having sex doesnt make you grown. stop it. (iswis)

adults, being able to post porn doesnt make you grown or mature, stop believing that it does. (iswis)

just because it's a coping mechanism doesnt mean it's healthy. (iswis)

avoiding conflict doesnt mean youre mature. if there is an active problem and you know ignoring it will only benefit you and not the actual problem at hand that is selfish. (iswis)

black women generate clout for everyone. when we're hated the person gets patted on the back, someone appreciates black girls they are praised, and people of many groups repeatedly steal from our culture. (iswis)

YES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN. (whe)

if youre black you do not have to be democrat OR republican, there are many other parties. (whe)

i do not trust either parties, no minority should. (whe)

this 2020 election was not a win for poc people no matter who won. (iswis)

we do not decide whether or not what to do on columbus day. it is up to the natives themselves. (whe)

pointing out other countries (current) faults is not racist. although the issue can be misconstrued, if proper research is done it safe to say it's an educated observation or opinion. (whe)

privilege heavily varies; ex, americans are seen as privileged, while the people who live in it experience a disadvantage because of the societal standards. within the country itself. (whe)

americans, stop saying that america is the worst country and there are other countries who are suffering much worse than we are. yes sometimes it sucks but do not label it as the worst. (iswis + whe)

white people are privileged and will always be until we break the racist issues deep rooted in EVERY community. (iswis)

9/10 when marginalized groups like (women, lgbt) are mostly focused on white people and never address the poc counter parts. using the excuse "well idk much about that" is not good enough and just promotes pseudo-white supremecy. (iswis + whe)

do not use aave. (iswis)

aave is not gen z language, stop calling it that. (iswis)

gay men (white especially) use black women and get praised for the things we do that are called ghetto. (iswis)

yes it is offensive if you touch a black persons hair with or without permission. we are not your pets nor zoo animals. (iswis)

and yes it is offensive if you see a black women with beautiful hair and assume it's fake or ask, "is it yours?" "is it real?" (iswis)

using jailbait as an excuse to lewd minors is just as disgusting. (iswis)

beauty standards for women is rooted from pedophilia. (iswis)

using other pedophilic relationships as an excuse to ship yours is disturbing and you shouldnt be near children at any capacity. (iswis)

everything doesnt need a label. (iswis)

the fact that gangs have been criminalized while mafias havent is racist and feeds the stereotypes that poc are criminals. (iswis)

people are more forgiving to white predators than to poc (neither are good but people let white off the hook more often). (iswis)

if youre okay with your friends being racists, creeps, abusers you are just as bad. (iswis)

although you can like what you like, making dark content shouldnt be as glorified as much as it is. (iswis)

some kinks do deserve to be kink shamed. (iswis)

adults need to be more held accountable when held in situations with minors. (iswis + whe)

everyone perceives the world differently, many people will see the same things you see differently. (iswis)

calling people crazy for questioning the things around them doesnt make them crazy, youre just asleep. (iswis)

the human body can function without a soul. (iswis)

stop disrespecting christianity. you wouldnt do the same with hinduism, islam and etc. (iswis)

the bible was altered by white men and the true meanings have been misconstrued. (iswis + whe)

bullying someone who you THINK is problematic is not excuse to be hateful. youre just scum and feel the need to justify your actions. (iswis)

not everyone has to like you and dont need a reason. (iswis)

just because you dont like someone doesnt mean you have to make a show of it. be mature and move along. (iswis)

yes callouts/cancelling has its place but it's never done right. (iswis)

"cancel culture" wasnt a thing till white people joined in. (iswis)

dont cancel someone for stuff they did years ago. bringing it up is important but not allowing them to understand, reflect, and apologize is not only bullying it defeats the purpose of bringing awareness. (iswis)

big writers need to stop complaining when one fic or a few dont do good. not only does it rub in small writers faces, it shows that if you need people's validation to write you probably shouldnt be writing. some works will be popular and some will flop, get over it. (iswis)

stop witch hunting & crucifying people for shit you have done or your friends have done and going "uwu sorry" when you get caught. (iswis)

90% people believe content creators with bigger audiences. (iswis)

people spontaneously posting, "uwu take care of your mental health" doesnt mean that they actually care. (iswis)

people are always quick to judge people with real mental health such as depression, anxiety, adhd, and etc are always the one to turn and pretend to be exactly what they just mocked. (iswis)

dont have kids if youre not going to take care of them. (iswis)

stop baiting baby otakus (people freshly getting into anime) into watching cp like yarichin bitch club or boku no pico. they are minors, it's not funny, stop it. (iswis)

stop being protective & toxic over anime characters. if they were real they probably wouldnt even like you. (iswis)

just because someone is your friend doesnt mean that they arent toxic or abusive. (iswis)

start believing when people show their true traits. (iswis)

trauma happens in different forms, stop saying something didnt happen because it didnt go the way that has commonly happened or the way it occurred to you. (iswis)

stop saying minors should "know" while also being the loudest to say that our brains arent even developed till 25. (iswis)

the adult age should be raised to 20 years old. (iswis + whe)

tos should be raised to 16 years old. (iswis + whe)

minors take "18+" & "minors dni" out of your bio. (iswis)

yelling at minors for finding the content you freely put out without any care is your fault not theirs. (iswis)

there are plenty of adult sites that are more confined for adults but you guys ignore them because youd rather get popular on writing erotica on a popular social media platform. (iswis)

trying to cancel someone over one mistake and or blowing said things out of proportion is toxic and stupid. (iswis)

if you take someone saying they need to distance themselves for mental health reasons personally and make them feel bad for it youre an actual shitty person. (iswis)

if someone disrespects you, you have the right to say whatever you want in response. (iswis + whe)

stop hypersexualizing everything (adults especially). (iswis)

the excuses of, "they look grown" "i mentally think xyz" "theyre fake" is creepy and weird and yall should come up with a better excuse. (iswis)

yes i do believe minors should be writing for minors only, but i will not give a shit if an adult does if said characters are aged up in every work sfw or not. (iswis)

stop saying teens cant go through traumatic things and cant experience mental illnesses. it just shows that you werent cared for as a child and never get the therapy for it. (iswis)

gen z has a very colonized idea of activism. (iswis)

feminism was never for all women until the rest of us forced ourselves in. and even now it's still an issue whether or not people realize it or not. (iswis)

poc solidarity doesnt exist as much as we try to make it happen. (iswis)

colorism is an issue, and no you will not tell me otherwise. (iswis)

the hot cheeto girl is offensive and demeans black & hispanic culture. (iswis)

stop bashing minors for breathing, just say youre mad youre not young anymore and move on. (iswis)

black men are the white people of black people. (iswis)

there is no reason as to why you anyone would refer to black people as "blacks". nor should you (non-black people) be arguing whether or not to say nigga even with the hard r. (iswis)

if you (pertains to white people) think white privilege doesnt exist but go on to make fun of or ignore minority problems you are the living and breathing example of what we are talking about. (iswis)

loli/shotas are fucking disgusting and people who like it deserve to be tortured for eternity. (iswis)

seriously, stop using theyre "fake" as an excuse. (iswis)

if youre comfortable with being hateful to someone but still consider yourself a nice person because you do the hate minimum to be a decent human, youre either a narcissist or have a god complex. (iswis)

coons have no say in black issues. (iswis)

people need to stop blaming the "home wrecker" for ruining the relationship when it was the s/o's fault as well. there is no home to enter without an owner. (iswis)

stop saying any asian man yo see reminds you of a haikyuu character and or any anime character. it's racist. (iswis)

stop saying any asian person looks like a kpop idol, it's racist. (iswis)

stop downplaying and invalidating when black women go through traumatic things. not only does it promote that we have to be strong and save everyone else's problems, it says that we dont have emotions and cant be a victim which is disgusting. (iswis)

if you say shit like "minors curate your own experience" then go and turn around to say you REFUSE TO TAG YOUR SHIT YOU ARE LITERALLY MAKING THE PROCESS OF CENSORING HARD! (iswis)

white women are just as much of a problem as white men. only difference is sex keeping them apart. (iswis)

stop saying kpop is racist. expecting artists from a different political progression to understand that things can be offensive is bland. (iswis)

people accept boy groups fuck-ups more than they accept girl groups. and most times out of ten, the males are worse. (iswis)

if you engage in nsfw conversation with a minor, it is your fault they responded. (iswis)

anyone can be abused. (iswis)

stop coddling adults and bullying minors. (iswis)

most of you females have internalized misogyny and dont even know it. (iswis)

you can callout issues without having to drag a group of people. same with uplifting. (iswis)

if youre fine with being a sheep unfollow me. (iswis)

seven deadly sins is not a good anime. (iswis)

there is a difference between boku no hero academia fans based on if they call it "bnha" or "mha". (iswis)

ships literally are not serious stop harassing people over ships. (iswis)

do not harass creators of series because they do something with THEIR story. make your own. (iswis)

stop saying horikoshi sexualizes his women too much/mineta is the worst when you guys enjoy shows like one piece, hunter x hunter, naruto and etc. (iswis)

minors often or not are sheeps (heres your sign you dont have to agree with everything other people say). (iswis)

just because minors can be mature doesnt mean that they are adults. stop treating them as such. (iswis)

we should give more voice actors in the asmr (idk what to call it) community more recognition instead of just one. (iswis)

writers are the ones that send hate to other writers. anon hate is so corny and if you do it that goes to show that you are truly a toxic person wearing a fake mask of kindness when youre not on anonymous. (iswis)

stop being mean to smaller writers because they did not have as much luck as you. (iswis)

stop blaming your readers because one story flopped. (iswis)

ignoring someone's shitty actions encourages them to do it more. (iswis)

going to school and getting a job is much harder now than it was before. (iswis)

being an adult doesnt automatically make you mature. just because youre older doesnt mean youre better or you opinion is more valuable. it just shows that you werent heard when you were younger. (iswis)

there should be no reason as to why someone of the age of 18 should be having any romantic relationship with someone who is a minor. (iswis)

hawks is a shitty character. (iswis)

bakudeku isnt toxic. (iswis)

just because bakugo is in a ship, doesnt mean it's toxic. (iswis)

stop shipping male characters together simply because they have screen time together. it's creepy. (iswis)

almost all of 1-a students have ptsd and anything close to the after effects of being traumatized. (iswis)

no, editing characters to be poc is not racist. youre just mad they arent "white" when they never were. theyre asian and come in many colors as well. (iswis)

wanting to only be with a different race to get a mixed baby is fucking disgusting. (iswis)

stop ignoring pedo relationships between older women and younger boys and or with older women in general. (iswis)

males can be abused, stop telling them to suck it up or that they cant go through things. (iswis)

shaming young females about things they cant control is misogynistic and is damaging to their identity and shouldnt be excused. (iswis + whe)

not all females have to shave. (iswis)

what you dont like in someone is the projections you see of yourself on other people that you dont like about yourself. (whe)

popular bl stories extremely misrepresent gay relationships and frankly it's disgusting that theyre boosted as much as they are. (iswis)

jjba isnt ugly, you just watch animes to sexualize the characters. (iswis)

it's shitty that anime and kpop only became cool once white people stated to like it and made it mainstream. go gatekeep family guy or something. (iswis)

if you have been anime fan for a long time you were with bullied/teased for just generally liking it or you were a weirdo who recreated shit from it. (iswis)

weaboo and weeb were bad terms till we made them positive?? literally otaku is the word for it but we use weeb instead lol. (whe)

normalize and promote educating someone without going straight to bullying them. (whe)

haikyuu isnt really a good manga/anime nor is the art style the best but the characters make up for it. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to manipulate your narrative. (iswis)

toxic positivity is manipulative and if you have to make it back handed you are not as nice as you like to make it seem. (iswis)

studying a major doesnt mean youre actually good in the subject. (iswis)

normalize people realizing their past mistakes and growing from it. (iswis)

do not self diagnos unless you actually feel like you may have that issue and would like to seek help. mental health is not a personality trait. (iswis)

stop projecting onto people. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to fit your narrative. (iswis)

stealing any type of work should not be tolerated. (iswis)

constantly trying to trigger someone to go back to their old ways (being toxic, abusive, addiction, suicidal etc) after changing is toxic and manipulative. (iswis)

if you make jokes about hurting kids and or feel the need speak badly about them i do not want to speak to you. (iswis)

the human brain wasnt developed to understand complex ideas such as death or the universe. (iswis)

we will never truly know what is beyond our skies. (iswis)

thats all, thanks for sifting!

[jouesrose-a]

i’ve done a version of this rant before but seeing as i just had to unfollow two people over this I wanted to make this completely claro. you and your shitty friends do not have the right to write and humanize nazis. you and your shitty ass friends do not have the right to gaslight other people for believing that humanizing nazis is completely disgusting and shouldn’t happen. we all like to write “dark” themes, i get that. but, creativity has a moral line and you do not have the right to cross it under the guise of fiction. nazis and everything they stand for have hurt actual people; people who are active in the rpc. nazi ideals and imagery have radicalized actual people. (Alt Right groups are a thing, they have rallies and websites and visit colleges.) it is not a trait you can adhere to a muse and not expect consequences. this is supposed to be a community and when you’re a part of a community you are supposed to think about others. it’s selfish to think you can glorify and romanticize such disgusting ideals in a community that is striving to be diverse and inclusive. it’s selfish to be more concerned with being tagged in a callout post than you are about who you are and how you interact with people who are unlike yourself. roleplaying at it’s core is an escape; your jewish mutuals should not be subjected to blatant nazi imagery. it is not a difficult request to ask people to not write characters like this. If nazism really tickles your fancy (first of all, what the entire fuck is wrong with you? are you okay? do you need help?) do that by yourself, go find an alt-right subreddit (oH WAIT, THOSE DON’T EXIST ANYMORE BECAUSE THEY’RE HATEFUL)

here’s another thing i want to make claro. the WHITE (yes, Y’ALL) people in this community need to fix the way they interact with people of color and jewish mutuals. I saw so many people be so completely condescending to folks that are just trying to make the community (as fucked up as it is) a bit safer. but, no. apparently, telling your precious white friends that WRITING AND INTERACTING A NAZI CHARACTER IS BAD AND WRONG is bullying. oh! and apparently calling out anti semitism is just people on tumblr dot com being negative and starting *~drama~* (sidenote: fuck you if you boil down calling out racism to Internet Drama). the bulk of people making posts last night were BLACK GIRLS and the bulk of people getting pushback for making those posts were BLACK GIRLS; the way you treat us and our anger is noted and it isn’t cute. you dismiss us as being Angry Black Girls™ who are a bunch of loud, ghetto, reverse racists. i’ve had ENOUGH. i’ve had enough of y’all being so far up in your own privilege you have no intentions of changing your behaviors. i’ve had enough of y’all attempting to gaslight people of color and jewish people for calling out the things that seek to dehumanize them. i’ve had enough of y’all being more concerned with people called racist and a nazi sympathizer in a callout post than you are about actually not being a racist or a nazi sympathizer.

tl;dr: CALLOUT POSTS AREN’T THE PROBLEM, YOU ARE. + STOP WRITING NAZIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to my jewish followers: this blog is a safe space for you. your thoughts and your opinions are valid. you have a place in the rpc and i will try my absolute hardest to make that clear as often as i can.

[alightinthelantern]

Oh my god, I want to die. My mother was an abusive cunt to me for twenty years and she’ll never get any punishment, not so much as a slap on the wrist. She got away with it scot-free. All of my abusers got away scot-free, Delaina and Marcus and all of the cunts at Howard Center. I suffer flashbacks nearly every day and they all have positions of power over other children just as vulnerable as me. Delaina is principal of a special-needs school, my mother is on the board of directors at Howard.

They locked me in a basement at Howard Center for whole weekends at a time as a teen when I misbehaved, a dingy little apartment with an electronic keypad lock and a bedroom with a deep square window that glowed red with city lights at night. I had Chef Boyardee from a metal cabinet to eat every day, and I had to ask permission to use the bathroom, and I was locked into the bedroom at night. I wasn’t allowed to talk to whatever staff member was On Duty except to ask to use the bathroom or for food because the metal cabinet was kept locked and I wasn’t allowed to touch anything myself, and they just sat in their little staff room watching tv all day and night. The stays were so traumatizing that it was multiple years before I could look at Chef Boyardee without having flashbacks. And Delaina, the Case Manager who instituted the policy of locking me up and traumatizing me into behaving, runs a school full of vulnerable special-needs children like I was.

“YOU ARE SUCH A SPOILED, SELFISH CHILD, AND I PUT UP WITH SO MUCH FROM YOU!!” my mother and grandmother would scream at me once a week growing up. My mother once served tomatoes with dinner when I was nine and I hated the taste and texture of them so much I spit mine up while gagging. She ordered me to eat them but I refused, unable to bear it, so she put them on a plate in the fridge and punished me by taking away all my toys and other privileges. The next day she served them to me at lunch, and I refused to eat them. She punished me until dinner, when she served them again, and I refused. This went on for multiple days, she getting ever more violently angry at me all the time, and I finally caved after two or three days under fear of physical violence.

She forced me to grow up as a boy when I wanted to be a girl, but I’ve been abused by so many shitty (White) women, who’ve all treated me like a villain because I’m “a boy” and I’m Autistic, that I don’t want to lump myself in with them, and now I don’t know what I am. Once when I was nine I went up to my teacher in school, and said on the verge of tears, “I wish I were born a girl!” And the teacher, an adult woman in her forties, rounded on me, saying “You know, men rule the world, and women have it so hard! You are so lucky to be a boy, and you are so selfish if you don’t realize it!” Those were her exact words. And yes, she was a blonde White woman. Thus, gender is inextricable from trauma for me.

I tried to kill myself when I was 14, and I spent my entire teenage years borderline-suicidal. She spent her entire upbringing of me alternating between neglect and abuse, withholding her “love” any time I had misbehaved, punishing me whenever I tried to show independence, leaving me with no self-esteem and no ability to care for myself. She isolated me from the rest of the world, preventing me from having literally any social life outside of school my entire teenage years, and she always punished me with whatever hurt me the most for even the most minor infractions.

I’m 26 years old and I’m fucking broken, I moved out at 19 and I’ve spent the past 7 years trying to heal myself but I can’t do it, the abuse and trauma haunt me every day. I have Asperger’s, OCD, Bipolar, PTSD, and depression from all of these. I wish I had a gun, I can’t fucking take it. I have a major breakdown every year and a medium-sized one every couple months. And now, when it’s too late to make a difference, when I’m already broken for good and have given up completely on life, she thinks being nice to me will get me to forgive her, being nice by lending me money for a needed new desk, or some clothes, or whatever. This stupid Catholic cunt thinks she deserves forgiveness, when even now she’s so self-absorbed and fragile that the slightest perceived insinuation that she wasn’t a stellar parent makes her purse her lips and glare and shut down and start ignoring me altogether, even when I wasn’t saying or implying anything. Once, a few years ago, we were discussing the movie The King’s Speech, and she said that King George VI’s father was a jerk in the movie. I said “Oh yeah, he was abusive to his children!” which was true. The conversation wasn’t even about her but she made it about herself, and got angry and defensive and stopped talking to me for several minutes. I recently said that I thought I was suffering burnout in response to my childhood, and she just started sarcastically uh-huh-ing (like nasty women do), and took her smartphone out and started scrolling on it so she could ignore me to my face. Even now I’m forced to babysit my own selfish cunt of a mother.

And I love my dad, he’s the only person in my family who’s ever been good to me, but he is such a fucking moron, and he does not understand when I try to talk to him about it. He remembers how my mom treated him during their divorce, how he suffered a life-threatening brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him, how he was rushed to the hospital and when they cut his skull open blood shot out and splattered on the wall over ten feet away from the sheer pressure inside, and how she didn’t care enough to visit him once. But he thinks she’s just a normal person who was going through a rough time, he gives her the benefit of the doubt, he lived a state away and never saw the abuse my mother inflicted on their children behind closed doors, the constant screaming and shaming and pitting us against each other to maintain her obsessive control over us, and it’s exhausting trying to convince him of my childhood was not normal. That most of the problems he was told I had were made up.

I wasn’t an easy child to raise, but I was not the fucking monster I was treated like. I was the scapegoat for all my family’s troubles, and my sisters, angry and hurting at our mother’s abuse, were encouraged to take it out on me, because of course I was ugly and awkward and talked too much and didn’t know how to behave and embarrassed them in public, and for selfish, shallow people there really was nothing likeable about me. And my sisters bullied me and my mother never punished them for it and she always punished me when I fought back. And I tried to kill myself when I was 14, and my mother cared more about how her daughters were upset by my attempt than the fact that I was miserable with life enough to literally try to kill myself. How awful do you think my life was to have forced a naive little Autistic boy who sang along with the hymns in church to think death was the only way out? And still I am villainized! Still I am the bad guy, everyone in my family both immediate and extended view me as the devil incarnate, everyone has always and will always hate me!

And all these snotty young women on the street and in stores glare and snap at me for being Too Male, acting like I’m their oppressor, because I’m male-shaped and I don’t have Good Socialization Skills (when I was isolated growing up and never allowed to develop them), and I talk Wrongly (which is ableism), when I’m just an ugly, awkward, gangly person with such debilitating mysophobia and social anxiety I literally will not leave my apartment if I don’t have to. I can’t work, I live on disability benefits, and I only leave the house for laundry and groceries.

No one has ever taken me seriously, no one in law enforcement or any of the equally imbecilic, incompetent health organizations in this fucking backwater state have ever believed me. Fuck Vermont.

Well fuck the Catholic God and fuck the devil too, and fuck any and every Higher Power that may or not exist. I am so fucking tired. Fuck my life. Just end me already.

[shad0wpuppetz]

Iron Fist Rant

Alright, so, the more distant I get from having watched this trash fire, the less I liked it, and even though only maybe 3 people will read this, I’d really like to rant about it at length. 

WARNING: This rant is long as hell and full of spoilers. 

Many of my problems with the show revolve around the characters. This is an especially heinous grievance since the other Marvel Netflix series have such strong, well-written characters (more often than not). In this case, there is only one character who is entirely consistent throughout the entire series, and it’s Joy Meachum. Joy’s decisions are the only decisions that make any real sense. Everything she does has a reason, even when she’s willing to betray Danny for the sake of her father. She has, after all, just found out that her father has been dead after she saw him die of cancer when she was 13 years old. Oh, and there’s Claire Temple, who has her own issues, but everyone else is a shitty character who is not consistent in any way at all.

We can start with the man himself, Danny Rand. So in the first couple of episodes, Danny is super interesting. Like, yes, there’s this problem with a white dude being raised by monks and using Eastern Mysticism to save the world in his own white way. Honestly, whatever, they give story reasons for him to be a white guy raised in a monastery. When he starts out as a barefoot, fish out of water monk in New York City who is often mistaken for a homeless guy, he was way more interesting. Honestly, this is probably a very Buddhist thing for him to do (forgive me, I don’t know as much about Buddhism as I should to make this claim, but I feel that his philosophy carries over somewhat with him in these beginning few episodes). I do know enough about Buddhism to know that his temper tantrum over not getting his half of Rand Enterprises isn’t in line with the philosophy he was supposed to have over the last 15 years or so. I know that his very sudden transformation from bare-foot, innocent, wide-eyes martial artist in the city into wealthy business man who buys an Aston Martin and lives in a penthouse apartment is extremely unrealistic. Sure, we see him making business decisions based on what is “right” and “good” and “just” or whatever, but there’s no fish out of water transition here. He has been gone from the world for 15 years in an inter-dimensional monastery. Granted, I don’t know what kind of technology was available to him there, but in his flashbacks we don’t see any of it. Yet he has no trouble adjusting to any recent technology, he has no trouble having to wear shoes, he has no trouble at all transitioning to CEO and majority shareholder of probably a Fortune 500 company. We see him shirk his duties often to go fight for justice, but there are no real consequences for this. Sure, the Meachum siblings get a bit salty, and he’s fired for like 3 episodes, but nothing lasts and he doesn’t really seem to care beyond his own white privilege birthright or whatever. 

Then there’s Colleen. Boy do I have a problem with Colleen. As one of (arguably 3?) poc cast members, she seemed really shoehorned in. So we see this salty Chinese(?) lady putting up flyers in Central Park (or wherever) and Danny Rand immediately does the most racist thing he possibly can and starts speaking to her in Mandarin. Like?????? Fucking really???? And she was like “It’s been a really long time since I’ve spoken that, I speak Japanese these days!” Or... something. Honestly I didn’t go back and watch it, the show seemed really confused about her ethnicity. It’s as if the show writers were a bunch of white people who were like “She’s Chinese, or Japanese. Whatever, they’re the same thing, right?” and just went with that. So Danny asks her for a job, and she says no, and then she leaves. Then he goes and SEEK HER OUT like some creepy stalker weirdo, but we as the viewer are supposed to think this is okay because he’s our barefooted white hero. She, admittedly, is not okay with this at first. Colleen is this amazing martial artist who tries to give kids from bad neighborhoods structure and discipline. She, at this point, is extremely protective of them and loves what she does and is worried about losing her dojo because she can’t make rent. She tells Danny off, she is a good enough actress to make it clear that she wants nothing to do with him. I was convinced, we were all convinced, but he KEEPS. COMING. BACK. This is NOT OKAY. Listen, boys who might be reading this, if a woman wants you to go away, just fucking go away. I promise most women aren’t going to be the subject of weak writing and eventually decide they’re in love with you have have sex with you because you keep coming back to them. We kept seeing Colleen after this, there wasn’t any point until one time he returns and she just gives up ever getting rid of this asshole white guy. We find out she’s training Claire Temple to defend herself. Colleen decides she’s in love with Danny for some reason and they have sex-- even though he tells her all about his vow of chastity (another thing he just fucking stops having because what does philosophy matter for a fucking monk anyway, right?). I don’t have a problem with romantic subplots in shows. I like them if they’re well done (many these days are not, but still). This one was not well done. It really seemed like the original intention was for Danny and Joy to get together, they had a lot more chemistry and history. Colleen’s interest in Danny comes with a complete and random change of heart. She goes from being this badass, protective martial arts mom to the damsel love interest who didn’t know she organization (spoilers, it’s the Hand) she’s been apart of forever had a goddamn murder dungeon on the complex.

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

So, we meet Colleen’s sensei, a Latinx dude named Bakuto who is coded as villainous from the very beginning. To no one’s surprise, he is the leader of a splinter faction of The Hand who opposes Madam Gao’s way of doing things, it’s not important to this rant. What is important to this rant is that Colleen has been a part of this organization for an indeterminate amount of years and she INSISTS that this faction of The Hand is Different. She swears that they don’t like Madam Gao, that they don’t do stuff quite as shady as she does, that they all have normal jobs and they help people! To no one’s surprise (again), we find out about the murder dungeon: we find out about it through Colleen’s former students. There is nothing that could have convinced me that Colleen is the only member of this faction of The Hand who didn’t know about the shady shit that was going on in that house that NO ONE was allowed to go to. Really? You’re trying to sell me this badass, intelligent martial arts lady and she doesn’t know about the bad shit even her Different faction of The Hand is doing? She needs white goddamn privilege Danny Rand to show her? Give me a break.

Then there’s the huge plot hole in the form of Claire Temple. Now, I like Claire a lot. She’s cool, she’s capable, she is fairly well developed, I see why she has the following she does. However, Colleen and Danny decide that they’re going to go to China and take on The Hand at its source. Whatever, I don’t have an issue with that. What I do have an issue with is that Claire has Matt Murdock, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, on speed dial. Matt Murdock HATES The Hand. He is the reason that Claire even knows who they are. What I’m wondering is why she didn’t go “Hey, I know DareDevil, let me call him up and he’ll come with us. We probably need all the help we can get to take down this giant international organization.” And you know what would have happened? Matt would have picked up the phone, and he would have been like “The Hand? I’m already here outside of their compound, what’s taking you so long?” Like, I get that Marvel wants to give each Defender their own introduction, but it causes a lot of confusion as to why the one link between them, Claire Temple, seems to refuse to call one or a few of them up for help. Hell, even if she TRIED to get Matt on the line and it kept going to voicemail it would at least acknowledge that she tried and that we are, in fact, in a continuity here.

As far as Harold Meachum is concerned, the writers seemed like they were going for depth and complexity and just ended up with a clumsily written pseudo-villain. You start out thinking he’s on the side of the angels, because he wants Danny’s help to oust the Hand from Rand enterprises. He made a deal with the devil and he wants to try to trick the devil out of it. Fine. But then he mistreats his assistant and his son to a degree that we aren’t sympathetic with him. We probably shouldn’t be sympathetic with him, we think he’s working for the good of everyone, but then he’s this selfish person who wants what’s best for himself. Which, fine, but it really wasn’t played that way at all. His motivations came off as confusing, he was erratic and strange and not in any really convincing way. He waffles back and forth and many of his choices don’t seem to be consistent with... anything. Ward, his son, is the only person besides members of The Hand and, later, Danny, who knows that Harold is still alive from the majority of the series. We are supposed to believe that Harold has gaslighted his son into obeying his every command. Ward weakly tries to rebel against him to no effect. Ward is also erratic and strange, with many of his choices not being internally consistent with who I think he was supposed to be as a character.

Granted, some of the strongest scenes in the series are between Ward and Joy, but it isn’t enough to save it from all of the confusing random bullshit that happens as filler in the middle. Not only are the characters not all that well done, but man does this series get BORING in its middle episodes. Even season 2 of DareDevil kept me mostly interested throughout, and no one liked season 2 of DareDevil. I powered through to the unsatisfying ending, though, and after a few weeks of thinking about it, decided that I fucking hated the Iron Fist. It was bad. Don’t watch it.

[jezi-belle]

cut for first-worldest of first-world problems. Seriously, I recognize what selfish navel-gazing bullshit this is, please don’t yell at me about it.

I am fragile as fuck.

I know this. I have the emotional resilience of a goddamn toddler.

I’ve been as privileged as it’s possible to be without actually being wealthy. I’m a cis white woman (and identified as straight for most of my life) who was raised in the middle-class suburbs by attentive parents with no major illnesses. We had some financial crises come and go, but we were never without food, clean water, a roof over our heads.

I have ADHD and depression, which, the more I look back, manifested far earlier than I initially thought. I was bullied in school, had some moderate psychological problems -- way more than just the typical nerd kid with no friends, but never to the point of hospitalization or anything like that. I thought about self-harm a lot but never did it, never even seriously considered doing it. I have a number of chronic illnesses, but aside from the mental ones, they’re more inconveniences than anything else.

I have a college degree. My luck with jobs has been super shitty, but other than that, my life has been pretty good. And I’m an emotional fucking minefield.

I’m having panic attacks over the political future and the fact that unless I miraculously get offered a job in the next week, I’m going to have to move back in with my parents -- who are staunch conservatives and are delighted to be watching my future careen off a cliff because they don’t understand cause and effect.

I can’t engage with the future in any reasonable way without falling apart. I want to help, I want to be able to tell the future that I fought for it, but I’m afraid. I’m too afraid of imperiling what chance of financial stability or self-sufficiency I might have, or my relationship (my fiance is in Canada and we’re working on him immigrating down here). I’m too panicked by my daily life to think about how to do anything political and I’m too terrified by the future of the country to focus on finding a job or working on immigration paperwork.

I’m mentally and emotionally crippled, and stories of other people succeeding or pushing through it don’t encourage me. They only make me feel like more of a whiny privileged piece of shit for being so broken down by my relative inconveniences when so many people have survived and are surviving so much worse. And I hate myself for not being able to do more to help without falling apart.

[cieirmusic]

Television in a nutshell.

Local Television: Tells you everything wrong with your city even if you yourself never sees it.

National Television: Tells you everything wrong with the Country even though you don’t see anything wrong.

International Television: Tells you what’s wrong with the world even though you don’t see anything wrong with the world.

Local News: Celebrate a birthday or some kind of personal achievement in your life? We’re here to tell you what a selfish asshole you are for doing that while hundreds of thousands of people you don’t know in your city are suffering for not having what you have, you white privileged bastard.

National News: Celebrate your country’s birthday?  We’re here to tell you what a selfish bastard you are for supporting what we claim is a tyrannical leadership, while people less fortunate than you are suffering under his rule, you white privileged bastard.

International News: Think your country is so great, let us make you feel guilty about it, by showing you videos of the worst that’s happening to the rest of the world. You white privileged bastard.

Children’s Television: We think you’re too stupid to teach your own kids how to read and write, so we’re doing it for you. You white privileged meanie. Sorry, we can’t say bastard in front of the kids even though for all we know, not only do you say it, but they probably are.

Public Television: Bored of commercially paid TV? Watch our low budget crap and our pledge drive. Knowing full well you probably don’t donate a single cent of it you white privileged Bastard. It’s public television, we can say what we want. Bastard.

Movie Television: Too lazy to go to the theater and rather sit on your ass at home? Here’s the channel for you, you lazy white privileged bastard.  Now you can watch movies and shows that we hate and want eliminated because they stroke your ego so much.

Adult Television: You sick fuck, why would you turn to this channel. Do you like watching other people having sex in ways you can barely imagine? Are you trying to compensate for the small penis you’re using to stimulate yourself. You sick white privileged bastard.  And you two, the couple fucking on TV put your clothes on it’s 2020, what you’re doing isn’t Liberal anymore.

Sports Television: You like to watch people hurt themselves for entertainment don’t you? Placing bets on which team wins, no matter who gets hurt in the process. I only watch because of that one guy refusing to stand, he’s the only good athlete in my book. What’s that you hate him because he’s not actually playing the game. Then on top of being a white privileged bastard, you’re a racist white privileged bastard.

Business Television: Ah the money channel. When you’re too lazy to go to the exchange yourself you like to watch all the green arrows and red arrows. Bragging about your gains and their losses. You white privileged bastard.

Music Television: In the 1990s, we used to put actual music, music themed shows and music videos on this channel. But when we found out how many white privileged bastards were watching us, we decided to end it and replace it with shitty reality shows and shows talking about how much you suck. You white privileged bastard.

On-Demand Television: Choose what to watch, when you want to watch it. So when you’re being a White Privileged Bastard, you get to choose whether or not to listen to our guilt trips. Wait what are you doing with that button--

[theliterateape]

Don Hall 1966–2018

If you haven't already heard...

I'm going to do my best to write this so that you can follow it. The emotion I’m feeling right now is crippling. But the responsibility I have to Literate Ape and this wretched news is serving as leg braces keeping me from collapsing.

Don Hall, husband, son, brother, uncle, nephew, friend, storyteller, writer, musician, trusted collaborator and confidant, event producer, shit stirrer, and at times, the internet's most hated man has died. He was 52.

I was there when it happened. Sort of.

It happened Thursday night, March 29th. I was at Don’s place recording the week’s episode of the Literate ApeCast, as usual. When we wrapped recording, we chatted casually with Dana, his wife and Literate Ape contributor. We talked about the wellness of my wife, Katie, and son, Harry and the adjustment the three of us are going through in our home. We talked about the new pipe tobacco Don was in love with this week. We talked about Don and Dana’s birthday/wedding anniversary trip to Cancun — they were meant to leave this Tuesday. We talked about the Chicago Reader’s latest racial whoopsie when theater critic Justin Hayford printed the N-word in his review of Court Theatre’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. This is where, I believe, things went south for Don.

Don got angry. So maybe things didn’t go south for Don because Don thrives in his anger. So, really, this is where things went south for the rest of us. Because this particular bit of anger became his last.

To start, the Reader is often a point of anger and annoyance because it is bloviating and smug. In this way, the Reader is a lot like Don because Don had so often embodied bloviation and smugness. But for whatever reason, Don was to me far easier to take than the Reader. Thing is, it wasn’t even the Reader or Hayford’s choice to print a racial slur that got Don all wound up. It was the backlash Hayford and the Reader were receiving online.

Online vitriol has long been a rage-igniting issue for Don, and was often the topic of his writing. He saw most of it as emotionally reactive and ill-informed, and its result too often being an unreasonable public shaming and digital lynching, something that endorsed the ever-growing divide in modern America.

Don agreed that Hayford should have avoided the use of the word. The review was not made any better by having it, so why use it. But OK, he used it. So what? It wasn’t Hayford calling anyone an N-word, Hayford was only quoting a line from the actual play. Bad choice of quote to use, sure, but not worth the hatred he was receiving.

I had to get home to my wife and newborn son so I left Don and Dana’s with Don still steaming over the whole thing.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, about 20 minutes later, Dana called me. Don had dropped dead. Or at least she was pretty sure he was dead. He had no pulse, wasn’t breathing and he looked pretty dead. She was surprisingly calm on the phone.

“Did you call 9-1-1?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right over.”

I told Katie what had happened. Harry was asleep and she told me to go. I sprinted the few blocks back to their apartment.

The medics were there. Yeah, Don was dead. I have seen enough dead bodies to know. I have been here too many times… He was lying on his stomach. There was a small amount of blood under his head from where he smacked it on the corner of the coffee table as he fell — the coffee table that still had the empty beer cans from our recording session only an hour earlier. The apartment stunk. It stunk bad. Like hot milk and scorched opossum innards. Don had shit his pants.

It wasn’t the most dignified way for him to go, or be found, but it’s the truth, and what do you expect from a man who are as much cheese as he did? I tell you that Don Hall shit himself when he died because Don Hall was a champion of truth.To leave it out would be a disservice to his memory.

Don never pulled punches. He was honest in his failings and his successes. He was honest with his wife and his friends and his enemies and his employers and clients and students. Sometimes his honesty worked against him but that was only when it was offered to others and then manipulated by them for their own selfish gains. Don was not a selfish man. Don was giving with his time and his knowledge, and Don wanted true equality and fairness for all people even if it meant giving up some benefits of his white male privilege. Hell, Don knew true fairness and equality was only possible if that privilege was given up, and he was more than happy to dispose of it as best he could.

When I arrived to the dead, shitty body of my friend Don, Dana, his loving wife, was holding her knees to her chest on the floor across from him watching the medics assess the situation and then pack him up. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She didn’t weep. Shock was in full control. Though I hadn’t yet asked, she offered me the details of his final moments.

“We kept talking about the Reader thing,” she said. “And he started going on and on about online attacking and how nasty and pointless and hypocritical it all is. You know how he is — was. Fuck… He kept going and going, talking and talking, you know, like Don… I went into my little office to read the book I had just started. He was still going… And then he stopped. Just like that. Suddenly. And then I heard the crack. I ran out and found him. Then he shit his pants.”

Don Hall’s killer was an aneurysm. Sneaky fuckers, they are. They’ll claim anyone for any reason at any time. Who knows how long it had been waiting to attack. Who knows if Don’s fury over the online community of angry villagers triggered it. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I could have left the apartment with Don and Dana laughing and hugging and happier than ever, and his brain still would have exploded. So to speak… I don't know.

Here’s what I do know… Life goes on for the rest of us. And while there are certainly some in the storytelling and online community who may find a quiet pleasure in the demise of Don Hall, those who respected him and loved him will miss him. Hell, maybe those who hated him will miss him, too. Everyone needs an enemy. He was well past his midlife but he had a lot of living left to do. Or so we thought. Our Maker, or whatever, clearly had different plans. But Don had plans, too. Literate Ape, books, events, teaching, being a husband, enjoying that pipe tobacco, not shitting his pants in front of his wife…

There won’t be a funeral. Don hated those things. Actually, he’d never been to one. And Dana wants to keep it that way. So, how do we say goodbye to a life so full and a man who was always saying hello with hugs and encouraging words? He wasn’t perfect but he was one of the good ones. He was always thinking, always thoughtful, always trying to be better.

With Don Hall gone, I think we’re all a little less better.

Thankfully, we can still get our Don Hall fix when we need it. He’ll live forever in his books, in his podcasts and in his writings on Literate Ape.

And yet, he will be missed. And in some strange way, I know he’s going to miss us, too. And that’s the worst part about it. There was so much left for Don to do and see, and he’s going to miss all of it. Most of all, he’s going to miss Dana whose heart will forever be crouched on the floor with its legs held to its chest, in shock. Broken.

Rest in peace, Don, you magnificent literate ape, you. I’m sorry you shit your pants.

[sashinyan]

1/9/2017

I'm what I like to call a Category 3 piece of shit human being. There's 2 other categories before category 3, like just genuine assholes, that type of deal. And then there's lots of categories after category 3, like criminals, and rapists, and murderers... And just even more piece of shit, completely useless assholes. i'm right in between that kind and just a normal kind, i guess average because i'm average at every other aspect in my life so I figure I'd be average at this Too. I think about Category 3 like the type of people who talk shit about everyone in the most hypocritical way. Like me. The kind who makes white lies to get themselves out of bad situations because they just have too many problems they constantly make for themselves, like me. The kind that loves people, really, but lacks the adequate knowledge on how to show it. The kind that are lazy, and unsuccessful, don't apply themselves, the kind that will probably spend their whole life on food stamps working at Walmart because they can't seem to fucking figure out how to get control of their life and motivate themselves. Just like me. And 3 is an uneven number, because fuck you. Nobody likes to help me with my mental health. I know, it's my mental health which means I have to take care of it. I'm a whiny, privileged millennial that can't do shit for themselves. I know. You don't have to tell me twice. Believe me, I know I feel privileged to everything. I know that I could do more, and that I NEED to do more and I can't seem to get off of my lazy ass to do it. I complain too much and I'm a hypocrite. But its...suffocating. Everything going on inside my head is so heavy, and big and smothering. Its dark, and terrifying, and so so loud. Overstimulating. Blunt. Irrational. Just plain Stupid but so, so, so convincing. It's like having two devils on your shoulders that teamed up to make sure every moment you're alive you feel like utter shit and you think it, know it, too. You believe everything they say. Depression- yeah, that's what it is. Anxiety too. I've never been officially diagnosed but its that kind of thing that just sits in your body and rots it from the inside out. I wish I could have a doctor tell me it officially so that way I could throw the papers in the faces of everyone I know as if its some kind of justification. It's not really... but I know its a contributing factor. I'm not sure where I'm going with any of this. Depression sits on your chest, not every day but most days. The days where it doesn't it lays in the back of your mind ready to welcome you back like an old friend. Sometimes its comforting too in a way I'm not sure how to explain. After some point the sadness is like a lull, at least you feel something at all. In a fucked up way, when I'm happy sometimes I miss it. I like to tell myself not to be too happy, or too excited, because if I am it invites bad things to happen to me and ruin my happiness. They usually do. Before anything comes around that I'm excited about, I have a mental conversation with myself. "You're excited," I'll say. "Yes. Very." "It's not a good idea." "I know." "So stop caring." And I do. For a while. It doesn't happen for long. Then anxiety comes around. She's a bitch But a comfort too. Sometimes shes wrong but usually she's right. She makes me care when I otherwise wouldn't, because depression makes me not give a shit about anything but anxiety makes me care about everything. She tells me everyone hates me and I agree She tells me I'll never amount to anything, and I won't. She tells me when I can't trust someone and that's sometimes really important. She reminds me daily that the hatred I feel for myself is justified. I can't talk to my parents. I've been being suffocated since i was 13, maybe 12, and a few times I tried to mention it, or ask for help. More than a few. I got told my feelings weren't legitimate or to just get over it. And I did get over it. By myself. For a while, but it always comes back again in full-force, like it or not, we're in this together. I've wanted to kill myself before. One day I took pills and went to sleep and I woke up the next day and cried. I think about killing myself sometimes. I do a lot actually. I lay awake at night and think about it, like it's always right there waiting for me if I ever need it and I drown in my thoughts about it. Sometimes it consumes every part of me. I feel like I've lost control of my life but at least I could control my death and how I die. I'm not really religious but I wonder if whatever was out there would be mad at me. I think about my family too. I love them and I know they love me but we fight and that love isn't always enough for me. That's selfish, I know. I think about my cat and how much I love her. Even though she's a cat I know she loves me too. And she would be sad and not understand why I left. I think about my friends. I don't have a lot. I wonder if they would miss me. I think no, they probably won't. And while I would hurt everyone for a while, or when they think of me, life goes on. People will laugh and smile again just without me. I said the depression is a lull... It is.. I'm too lazy to die. It would be too much effort. I don't have the energy. none of my life is my own. it revolves around everyone I care about. I love to know every detail about them because I can't have my own life. I can never shut up. I'm not a mystery. I deal out my life, memories, rare feelings like playing cards. I'm an open book. My friends don't need to ask to learn everything about me. I love when they learn about me. I love it when people know who I am, when they notice me. I'm not very interesting but I want to absolutely candy coat myself in any tiny bit of attention I can get my hands on. I'm not talented, or beautiful, but I could talk about myself for hours because.. It's all I can do. I don't have amazing stories but its one of the few comforts I have. It's shitty and annoying. I'm such a fucking attention whore. Everyone knows it too. Attention whore always feeling sorry for myself. I want to show everything to everyone. Sometimes when I do have feelings, like joy, or anger, god I want to talk about them. I want to scream them to anyone who will listen. I can't remember the last time someone told me they were proud but I want them to be proud of me? I realize theres no organization, no point, in anything i've written. Thats okay. Its who I am as a person. Fucking stupid I want help. I want to feel alive. I want to breathe again. The psychological pain is crushing. But I want to get rid of it. I want a therapist. I want medicine. I want to live. But nobody will help me. I don't do enough either but nobody will help me. I don't have money. I can't do it alone. I'm so tired of being alone. I'm SO. tired. of being alone. Holy fuck. I want to breathe.. please Is this a suicide note? I don't know. I just.. I want to feel again. And I don't know how...I just want to feel alive. I don't want the lull. I want motivation and happiness. I want to feel. I want to be successful. I want to show people I love them. I want everyone to be proud of me. I want friends. I want a life of my own. I want adventure and happiness and money and love and success and my family. I want everything I don't feel. I want to pray every night I'll get it because I don't know how to do it alone,,