#bigoted in every way possible

[pokikirapoki]

I heard from some sources that Langdon is not playing Dante in the anime! There's no hard confirmation yet from an actual reputable source, but since he's been removed as Ken in sf6 and capcom was involved with this anime, I want to believe that he's not going to work with them at all anymore hopefully

ooooo that’s such a relief! even if it’s not officially confirmed yet, the fact that they removed him as ken sounds promising in regards to his involvement w/ other capcom IPs! thanks Sae! 🤗🤗🤗

[wifegideonnav]

watching lost and im only on season 2 so no spoilers pls but why is sawyer addicted to making the worst possible decision in every scenario. poor little meow meow hall of famer

[pa-pa-plasma]

kind of frustrating that people took "fat does not equal unhealthy" to mean "fat is not unhealthy." sometimes being obese IS unhealthy & excess fat can cause a lot of problems. ignoring health issues isn't progressive. real "oranges kill people with depression" moment

[veliseraptor]

@starrynightinblue replied to your post “Don’t get me wrong, I’m agnostic, my viewpoint on...”:

If you don‘t think that religion is regressive and silly, you need to watch more youtube videos with US Republicans in them. Just listen to their politicians talk about policies. You, too, can be cured of your misconception. 

​my friend, it might behoove you to remember that religion is, in fact, a very broad category that is not solely defined by fundamentalist christianity and/or christofascism as espoused by a party of politicians in the united states

[ursie]

Brennan’s statement on Palestine :

[ ID: Statement from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Instagram. It consists of three black squares with plain white text. The text reads as follows:

"I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. it cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. it cannot co-exist with illegal settlements, segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the violence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My hear breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because I, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The Unites States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In wiring this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts and ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough clever enough, or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not constantly weigh in an make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American Politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who I've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words I've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event. I'll just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine." End ID ]

[needle-thread-thimble-spear]

I think that comparing the TERF and TMRA movements on this website often misses something important. While these two ideologies are both centered in reactionary transmisogyny, the underlying goal is quite different. Trans exclusive radical feminism is an ideology of extermination, ultimately, or failing that elimination. When TERFs take control of some institution or community, their express goal is always to cast the transfeminine out (be that through "official" means such as firing someone under false pretenses or unofficial means such as harassing someone until they leave). In contrast, TMR activists as a rule seem quite interested in having transfems around. Trans Mens Rights Activism, while it may appear to be just a reactionary discomfort with the idea of possibly having power over someone else, is very much centered on exploiting transfems.

It is not so very unusual, I think, to experience some discomfort when you realize that other people may be afraid or uncomfortable around you because you have some social power over them. Most people do not like to think of themselves as exploiters, taskmasters, or bigots. Its easy to slip into a defensive stance when a trans woman says something like "i dont feel safe around men" or even "i dont feel safe around trans men". But once one gets over that initial defensiveness, and looks at the other persons position, why she might feel that way, usually one can get over that reaction. However, if one stands to gain from the exploitation of trans women, its not nearly so easy! If your transfem friend is always the one to clean up after hanging out, if you're using your trans girlfriend for sex and validation without any concern for her, if you are so extremely enamored with the transgressive potential of transfemininity that you feel compelled to keep a trophy or two around as tokens, all of a sudden you are confronted not just with the idea you might have power, but that you might want power. And very few people conciously want to be a chaser or a tokenizer or an abuser!* So it must be that the transfem made a mistake and you should explain to her why that is. Maybe you should remind her that trans men and trans women should be having crazy t4t sex actually (nevermind if shes a lesbian, or that this is corrective sexual harrasment). Perhaps she is delusional and these problems are entirely in her hysterical head, or maybe she is in fact a bigot, and so can be safely ignored/harassed/discarded. The stubborn transfem who wont back down remains disposable, and is at risk of being run out of town- but this is just a means to an end. The true goal is to keep the other transfems in line. Submissive, but not so much she loses that transgressive edge. Obediant, but not cloying. Not too clocky but she shouldnt be trying too hard to pass either. Follows each and every order but in a way that makes you completely unaware that you are, in fact, giving her orders. Or maybe she isn't even there, but the idea she could be is very important. Patriarchy, reproduced in the places it supposedly cannot exist.

These movements bleed into one another sometimes but i think this distinction is important because the way it impacts transfem people is distinct. It should also be noted that this process of exploitation (just like the process of elimination) does not in any way require some Official Ideological Movement. These are just natural courses for transmisogyny to take based on whether one can stomach their own discomforts with us.

*This pattern reproduces itself along other axes of oppression- what's outlined here may be particular to tranmisogyny, but similar patterns certainly occur with racism and ableism to name a few.

[edenfenixblogs]

re: your comment about the misinterpretation and misuse of "tikkun olam" by non-Jews, could you please explain what it *does* mean? I've heard that it roughly translates to repairing the world (like with Rabbi Tarfon's "it is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it"), but idk if that's what it actually is or not (sorry if any phrasing is weird, i've been awake for way too long today)

Your understanding is correct.

It does mean repairing the world. This means doing charity and choosing kindness whenever possible and generally doing small and large things without recognition in order to leave the world better than you found it. Plant a tree. Read at a nursing home. Save all your loose change for ten years then donate that amount to a cause you care about. Make kindness that helps others heal a part of your daily practice. This is tikkun olam.

I have seen bigots who consider themselves progressive try to goysplain tikkun olam as Jews attempting to impose their idea of perfection on the world around them and that we use it to justify violence. I have seen people say that Jews consider the bombing of Gaza and Rafah to be the ideal practice of tikkun olam. And it is a blatantly and horrifically false and disingenuous to say this. Tikkun olam is my absolute favorite aspect of my faith. I wake up and choose kindness and peace every single day and have since I learned about this concept. It is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

And to see others pervert it into something violent and to associate that violence as synonymous with Jewish religious ideology is truly one of the most painful things I’ve experienced in this conflict and one of the most bigoted things I’ve experienced in my life.

[cripplerage]

Hello internet, welcome to game theory. Today I want to share with you why I believe... the companion cube is morbidly obese according to the BMI, Glados has bipolar and Wheatley is gay.

*game theory intro plays*

Youtuber theorists are like “the DARK SIDE of Portal”

You mean like, the whole game? The whole entire game? Its entire lore and story? That side?

do you also have a “the DARK SIDE of [insert horror movie here]” videos?

[fanfic-obsessed]

Knowing

I have just had the worst, or best, brainwave and I need to share it. 

Here is an AU for you.

Vader thinks that he killed his wife and child, right?

Right up until he meets little Leia Organa when she is 10 years old. Like his one brain cell woke the fuck up when he was confronted with a passionate, angry little girl with Padme’s eyes and his chin. This is maybe a month after she was kidnapped and returned to Alderaan. Leia decides that she would need to learn how to be a senator and insists that Bail takes her with him to the next session of the imperial senate.  

Bail does not want to bring her to the imperial senate. However he knows very well who her birth parents were, it is either Bail brings Leia to the Imperial Senate or Leia brings Leia to the Imperial Senate, probably bringing with her someone she really shouldn’t (Like actual Obi Wan Kenobi-I just want you to picture for a moment, because Bail certainly did, looking up and realizing that Leia is charging down the halls outside his office, dragging with her a bemused and sandy Obi Wan, both in badly conceived disguises).

Bail is super stressed as he tries to run a rebellion while riding herd on his well meaning but very direct 10 year old daughter on top of his normal duties as an imperial senator. Bail is also very afraid that the moment the Emperor sees Leia, he will make the connection between Leia and Padme Amidala (The emperor does not socialize with the senate any longer, thank the stars). He has no idea that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, so has no cause to be more careful than normal (because Vader) about Vader seeing Leia. As such Bail does not even notice when Vader stops to consider them from the shadows. Leia is haranguing another planet’s senatorial aide who had chosen the wrong moment to make a bigoted joke. 

Vader is very abruptly, though mentally, thrown back to this very hallway 12 years earlier where he watched his wife do the same thing, for the same reason, possibly to this same aide. Though Leia is still a child and Padme was an adult, he can still see his wife in this little girl.

The realization that this is Padme’s child hits him with the force of a Ventanor. Followed immediately, before he even realized that this meant that his child was standing in front of him, by the soul deep knowledge that she must be protected from the Emperor at all costs. 

Vader had known for years that his suit had been designed to cause him more pain, he just thought he deserved it. The thought of Palpatine getting ahold of Padme’s daughter was abhorrent. Vader sticks to the shadows and watches, seeing how well Bail loved and protected Leia. 

While he is thinking(read Obsessing) about his daughter, the part of him that is always centered on Obi Wan points out that his old master had been one of the last people to see Padme after Vader choked her. But the little voice that spoke in Padme’s tones piped up, the shock of Leia living being enough to finally make this little voice loud enough to be heard, saying that until recently Obi Wan believed that Anakin Skywalker was all the way dead, he was protecting their child as best as he knew how. 

And Vader has issues with just about every choice Obi Wan Kenobi ever made. But he will admit that hiding Padme’s daughter was the best option. 

As Vader knows that paying too much attention to Leia would draw the Emperor’s attention, he would be willing to wait until the right moment to get his daughter back. His one concession to his need to protect her was taking one of his personal guard, one of the few units still made up almost entirely of clones, and assigning them to be Leia Organa’s bodyguard, her shadow (I also want you to take a moment to consider what that did for Bail’s stress level).  And then Vader gets to planning. 

With his one brain cell awake and focused on the Organa’s it takes Vader all of 15 minutes to realize that Bail Organa is running the Rebellion (I want it to be clear, this is not a slight on Bail at all, Anakin Skywalker was a war general, well educated through the Jedi on a number of subjects, and does have a fair measure of politics learning from both his former master and his dead wife).  However Vader is no more loyal to the Empire than Anakin was to the Republic.  In fact, upon realizing that Padme’s daughter had lived Vader firmly decided that he needed to find a way to kill Palpatine to crown Leia.  With the realization that Bail, and likely Leia (neither Vader nor Anakin have any idea what activities are appropriate for a 10 year old), are part of the Rebellion, Vader decides that The Rebellion would succeed (or everyone would die trying). 

Note: Vader only really gets away with no one realizing that he now supported the Rebellion because, well, no one can quite believe that Darth Vader supports the Rebellion. Most people think there is a new type of Space Madness, and that one of the symptoms is hallucinating Darth Vader giving you intel for the Rebellion.

By the time Leia was a teenager, rumors abound about the odd way that Vader acted around her. By sheer happenstance (and some judicial violence on Vader’s part) these rumors had never reached the Emperor. A good deal of these rumors implied that Vader was looking to the Princess of Alderaan as a wife.  The reaction Vader had, the only time it was brought up in front of him, was…impressive, even for the amount of violence he normally dealt out. Still there are members of Vader’s personal guard who watch over Leia whenever she is on Imperial Center, and no one wants to repeat the time when she was 12 when one of Bail enemies tried to kidnap her for ransom.  It took an entire corps of engineers to put those levels back to rights (after they scrubbed the blood off).  

So we get all the way up to the timeframe of ANH. The Death Star in this does not start out under the control of Darth Vader. It starts out under the control of Tarkin, it is important to note this. Leia still sends out R2D2 and C3P0 to find Obi Wan Kenobi, none of that part changes. 

It is after Leia is captured that Darth Vader shows up (does he lurk silently in any system that Leia is due to be in as often as he can get away with…why yes, yes he does). Tarkin had wanted Leia tortured, however no one wanted to find out how many decks Vader would spread their entrails across for touching her.  Vader arrives on the bridge just as Tarkin is threatening to blow up Alderaan. Tarkin orders the weapon to begin its charge. 

Leia, Leia who is so like her mother in that she will use every weapon in her arsenal, turns to Darth Vader and speaks to him for the first time. ‘Please’ she said, no effort to hide her distress, ‘please save my planet’

Something Leia had no cause to know-An angel who she resembled once thanked Anakin Skywalker for saving her planet. 

Tarkin is dead almost before she finishes speaking. Vader orders the DS weapons to power down and disengage, which is done post haste. Then announces that Leia Organa was now in control. 

So Leia now owns a Death Star (genuine article-never used). Leia is not sure if that is how this works, but no one is arguing with the tall man in black who has OPINIONS and will enforce them.  Leia manages to communicate this to her parents, who take a shuttle up to the space station to figure out what the fuck is going on, and what, if anything, they need to do next.

Two hours later: Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, R2D2, C3P0, and Chewbacca have just been caught trying to sneak onto the Death Star. The Organas are still on board, trying to get answers (In that time Vader has said precisely five words to them ‘You have raised her well’).  It is to this room that the troopers manning the station (who are deeply confused and a bit conflicted because it seems like they may have all been forcibly defected from the Empire, but no one is willing to disobey Lord Vader) bring Obi Wan and co. and present them to Leia, as she is considered in command.  Somehow Luke’s full name (I kind of picture him still dumbly introducing himself to Leia, followed with ‘we’re here to rescue you’) gets used before the situation deteriorates. Which naturally causes everything to deteriorate further and faster than before.  

Far away on Imperial Center, the Emperor pauses in the middle of a hallway ‘I feel’ he says to no one ‘a disturbance in the Force.’ another pause ‘like some shit has just hit the fan’

Far away on Dagobah Yoda looks up, ‘weird, shit just got’

[gibbearish]

smth i think ppl who werent raised christian need to understand is that a) fear of death will make you do things you wouldnt otherwise do and b) being raised christian fundamentally kneecaps your ability to process death. most christians are the way that they are because if the bible isnt true, if god isnt real, then neither is heaven. if there is no heaven, then all their loved ones who have died arent actually waiting for them, there is no place theyll get to spend forever with the people they love now, there is no eternal reward for being good, there is no guarantee of any afterlife whatsoever. and as science progresses and christianity becomes harder and harder to maintain, as various claims in the bible get disproven and we learn more about how life actually came to be, that possibility that Death Might Actually Be Something They Have To Fear After All gets stronger, and so that protection of the idea must get stronger too. the bits of the bible that are too hard to defend have to be removed or papered over or talked around, the rules that dont make sense have to be explained or maintained without question, the people who dont believe must be agents of satan sent to damn their soul to hell. the way they learned to cope with death is to say it didnt happen, not really, not in a way that mattered, theyre still out there somewhere, youll see them again someday. and with that came a promise that their death wouldnt be permanent either. it all has to be true, that heart has to be maintained, because otherwise. otherwise, this is it, and we dont know what happens next. otherwise, death becomes scary again. otherwise, death is no longer the loading screen before your eternal reward. otherwise, they have to think about what might come next, how their actions affect others here and now, fully grieve the people theyve lost, grieve the eternal life of happiness and love they were promised from birth. and that is. hard. and while obviously none of this excuses the way they treat people, i do think that like. keeping that in mind during interactions with them, being aware of how high the stakes are for them, can very much effect the way you approach those conversations.

at the heart of every horrible christian with bigoted views and worse actions is a scared little kid who doesnt know where you go when you die, because the answer they were given when they first asked is turning out to be full of holes. and while you may not be able to work with the adult in front of you here and now, maybe you can at least find that little kid for a moment. maybe you can sit down with them and say yeah bud, that is pretty scary, isnt it? it's scary not knowing what's gonna happen to you. it's scary learning something you thought was true might not be. maybe you can tell the kid that theyre allowed to be scared, that being scared doesnt have to mean hurting others. and maybe the kid wont listen, maybe youll have wasted your time, who knows. but maybe not. and even if you did, youll have learned something about how to find that kid in others, so was it really a waste?

[dlwritings]

November 6, 2024 | Rafe Cameron

masterlist found here

pairing - Rafe x reader word count - 1,827 warnings - political talk, anti-T*ump rhetoric A/N - Who would've thought the shit show state of our world would inspire me to write again. I know for a lot of us everything feels really broken right now, and I know it may seem silly to some, but for me, writing feels like healing, even if it's just something like this. So here you all are. Rafe probably votes red, but here's a world where he doesn't. Also, if you're a T*umper, go ahead and unfollow me. I can't have any of that in my life. I'm so serious.

summary - The results of the 2024 election hit you pretty hard, and you end up taking your rage out on Rafe. Turns out, Rafe's hopes for the future looked a lot like yours.

You and Rafe didn’t talk about politics. You knew better than to broach the topic with him, because you weren’t naive. One glance at him and anyone could guess how he voted.

But that didn’t mean you had to like it.

The two of you had been dating for about six months, and for the most part, it was smooth sailing. It was gossip fuel for most people on the island for a few weeks -you being a pogue and Rafe being … who he was- but like most drama in Kildaire, it didn’t stay at the forefront of people’s minds for long before another thing came and stole back everyone’s attention.

And the thing on everyone’s mind right now was the election. The election that had you donned in blue on your way to the polls, a huge smile on your face as you filled in the bubble that would make history. Hope filled you in a way you were sure it never had before.

Until the next day.

Waking up and opening social media to see the results had already come in was enough to break your spirit completely. How could this have happened? How could the country have failed so many people?

Then again, how had you been so naive to believe in the possibility of any other outcome?

You shut yourself off from the world for most of the day. You went to work and gave polite smiles and nods to your coworkers as needed, but you did your best to spend the majority of your time locked in your office, alone. You didn’t dare to open social media, knowing every MAGA post from the bigots of the Figure 8 would bring tears to your eyes.

It wasn’t until you were at home on your couch that you decided to brave Instagram. Before scrolling through your feed, you added a black screen with a simple blue heart to your story and wrote the words, When we fight, we win.

You thought it was harmless. A simple story that showed your feelings without being overly dramatic. The last thing you wanted to do was act irrational by doing something crazy like storming the capitol. Because that would just be insane.

Unfortunately, the people who followed you saw it as anything but harmless. They saw it as an opening to send you the most heinous, revolting messages you had ever read. Your notifications blew up within minutes, and some of them were so borderline terrifying that you locked your phone and threw it across the room, once again leaving you in a puddle of tears.

You heard your front door open, and you cursed to yourself. In all the chaos of the news, it escaped your mind that it was Wednesday, and Rafe always brought pizza to your apartment on Wednesdays. You had once mentioned in passing that you liked a pick-me-up halfway through a week, and Rafe took it upon himself to provide you with that. Normally, it was one of your favorite parts of the week. Today, Rafe was one of the last people you wanted to see.

“Babe!” he called out upon his entrance. “I got your favorite!”

You met him in the kitchen, and by one look at your face, Rafe’s own expression dropped. “What’s going on?”

You swallowed back the lump in your throat. “I think you should go.”

“What?” he said, dropping the pizza on the counter and walking over to you. With each step he took toward you, you took one step back. He stopped quickly, a frown painted on his face. “What’s wrong, baby?”

The words made something snap inside you, and your fists clenched at your sides. “What’s wrong?” you repeated. “What’s wrong? How about fucking everything, Rafe! Everything’s wrong, and you not seeing that is part of the problem! You are part of the problem!”

Rafe was, in a word, flabbergasted. He ran through the past 24 hours, trying to think of something he had done wrong, but he was coming up short. “Okay, I’m-” He let out an exasperated laugh. “I’m trying to understand, but you’ve got to give me something more here. What did I do?”

“You-” You let out a huff of a breath and ended up speaking through gritted teeth. “You and your stupid fucking MAGA Kook friends voted for a convicted felon to run our country! You voted for a man who wants to throw away my rights. You voted for a man who has raped a multitude of women and brags about it!”

Rafe’s eyes were wide as he held his hands up and shook his head. “Hang on-”

“No, Rafe!” you shouted, pushing him back as he tried to get closer to you again. “For the entire time we’ve dated, I’ve danced around the talk of politics, because I knew better. I knew a rich ass white guy from the south would vote for another rich ass white guy to run our country, but I guess I naively thought it wouldn’t matter. That the poor guys would get a win for fucking once this time. For once I thought the good guys would win and that a white man would have to face the consequences of his actions. But you-” You laughed bitterly. “You of all people know that privileged ass white men never ever have to face the consequences of their actions.”

You were hitting him where it hurt, and you knew it, but you were hurt. You and every woman like you had been holding in years of pain and hurt, and for you and many others, today was the day it was all going to come out.

“Baby, if you just let me-”

“Let you?” you laughed incredulously. “You and your fellow MAGA guys have clearly shown me I don’t have to let you do anything anymore.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

You fished your phone out of your pocket, unlocked it, and shoved it in his face to show him all of the nasty messages you were receiving. Things like, “Your body, my choice,” “whomp whomp go make me a sandwich,” and “Guess what? Men win again” had flooded your DMs, and while you didn’t know it, Rafe was clocking every username and making a very specific list in his head.

“So maybe you can understand why I’m angry, Rafe,” you said, taking the phone back out of his hand and putting it in your pocket again. “I thought I could cancel out your vote, but I guess I forgot that meant you could cancel mine.”

“Ba-”

“I want you to leave, Rafe.”

“But I didn’t-”

“Fucking, go, Rafe!” you shouted. “Let me be angry and let me be alone!”

With a clenched jaw, Rafe gave a short nod. “Okay,” he whispered. “Fine.” It looked like he wanted to say more, but he refrained, instead turning around and heading out the door, leaving you in a mess of tears.

The next day, you called off from work. Maybe it was dramatic, but you didn’t care. You knew if one person even looked at you in a way you didn’t like, you’d lose any composure you had, and you couldn’t afford to lose your job for yelling at your boss.

You had the full intention to stay in bed all day, but the relentless knock at your door around 10AM proved that to be impossible. You felt some sense of relief, knowing it at least wouldn’t be another political petitioner.

Instead, perhaps just as unfortunately, it was Rafe.

You let out a heavy sigh. “What do you want, Rafe?”

He held out his hand which had a coffee cup in it from your favorite shop. “I went to your work, but your boss said you were sick,” he said. “I bought you coffee.” You took it, but didn’t say anything -just looked at him with raised eyebrows, as if to say, Anything else? “Can we please talk?” he said.

“I don’t know what there is to say, Rafe,” you sighed. Still, you stepped aside and let him in, not wanting your neighbors to bear witness to whatever argument was about to ensue. “I know we’re different -I’ve always known that- but I don’t think I can handle being this kind of different anymore.” You plopped yourself onto the sofa, expecting Rafe to sit next to you. Instead, he crouched in front of you so he was just slightly looking up at you.

“Baby, I didn’t vote for him.”

Your lips parted slightly in shock, and you felt tears instantly pool in your eyes.

“What?” you whispered.

“Yeah, of course I didn’t vote for him,” he said. He reached up to turn around the hat he was wearing backwards to reveal a Harris-Walz cap, and you let out a noise that was a mix of a gasp and a little laugh. “I know I’ve fucked up before baby,” he said. “And in other elections, yeah, I usually vote red. But this-” He shook his head and squeezed your knees. “This is different. And I know that. And I’d be an absolute moron to think that tax cuts for me are more important than basic rights for you.”

You moved to kneel on the floor next to him and held his face in your hands before leaning forward to place a soft kiss to his lips. When you pulled back, you kept your forehead against his. “I was so mean to you yesterday,” you whispered. “I didn’t-”

“It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve,” he said. “I know that I am living in a world that was pretty much tailor made for me. And I know I should be in fucking prison for all the shit I’ve done, and so should he. And I know that none of what I’m saying right now changes the bullshit I’ve done, but I figured I should at least use all this fucking privilege I have and try to help people who don’t have it. Because you-” He paused to press a kiss to your lips. “-have taught me so much about being a good person. And I’m not going to vote against that.”

“I wasn’t a good person yesterday,” you mumbled.

“You were reacting to an unfortunately historic event,” he said. “You had every right to lose it. And you can keep losing it, and I will be by your side for every minute of it, okay?”

You nodded and gave him a soft smile. “Okay.”

He smiled back and nodded. “Okay.”

You and Rafe decided to spend the rest of the day together, sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting in the quiet. When you suggested putting on a movie, Rafe agreed. He let you choose, no complaints, and watched as you searched for the Barbie movie. You cried at all the usual parts, sometimes a bit harder than normal, but Rafe understood.

It is literally impossible to be a woman.

----- ----- ----- -----

add yourself to my TAGLIST

strike-through means Tumblr won’t let me tag you

If you want to be taken off the list (or be put on for only certain people) just message me and let me know!

ALL:

@bangtan-serendipity

@planetdemon

@the-singing-clown406

@tomshufflepuff

@bluelalal

@grandloser

@jackiehollanderr

@mindset-jupiter

@bisexual-sk8r

@feel-like-gold

@runaway-apple

@miraclesoflove

@marvelismylifffe

@wonderbyers

@coraz0ndcristal

@lizmarvel

@delicately-important-trash

@superhoorny4daddy

@misshale21

@mrsjna

@daisydark

Rafe Cameron:

@starkeybae

@drakestoes

@ethanthequeefqueen

@r1vrsefx

@angelsplnet

@alltomay

@immelissaaa

@tahliac11

@bibliophilewednesday

[hotvintagepoll]

Welcome to the HOT AND VINTAGE MOVIE STARS poll blog!

The Scrungly Little Guys (gender neutral) Contest will start THIS THURSDAY, September 26th. All contestants have now been processed and are ready to scrungle it up for your enjoyment. Reminder that this contest enshrines the weird, the off-putting, the comic, the character actor, and the strange cinema legend. If you need a reminder of what scrungle means, this picture is the golden standard.

All polls—including ongoing polls, previous rounds, old tournaments, the various shadow brackets, the Dracula Daily polls, and fun mini polls—can be found in the #hotvintagepoll tag. I am working on a more complete tagging system so people just here for the polls can navigate the blog more easily, but that's still in the works.

FAQs:

“Define scrungly?” For the purposes of this tournament, a contestant must noticeably present in some way as at least one of these: odd, bizarre, off-putting, disheveled, creeping, feral, small, filthy, silly, funny, kooky, comical, exhausted, or just plain strange. This contest presents a wide array of scrungly appeal, so not every contestant will hit every single one of these (but should, ideally, be a few of them). Scrungles were chosen based on how convincing their submitted propaganda was. This contest is all about oddball character actors, creeping henchmen, comic relief sidekicks—the side characters who never get the credit they deserve in proper rundowns of famous old movie actors.

"How do I decide who to vote for?" Vote on whoever seems scrungliest to you. Do not vote for someone based on hotness alone. The video propaganda, included under the cut, is highly encouraged for showcasing scrungles.

"Is this just like the hotness tournaments?" No. This contest is sillier.

"Hey! Some of these guys sucked and they shouldn't be here!" Yes, some of these guys sucked. I agree with you. For reasons I've gone into before, I don't exclude anyone from the contest for moral reasons, even if I personally think they were garbage. I do this because I cannot responsibly research and vet every competitor's background and legacy, and I'm not comfortable being the moral barometer for everyone, even in cases where I think it's really obvious. You are welcome to vote against people for moral reasons, but as mod I don’t post or boost negative propaganda about anyone.

If I see repetitive, trolling, or bigoted remarks in the comments, I will block you from this bracket. If you want to point out a competitor’s problematic aspects in the replies, that’s fine, but if I see bad-faith trolling, you will be blocked. I will also block if you start harassing other people voting on the polls. If you really hate that someone is winning, please post positive propaganda for their opponent instead.

I welcome additional propaganda for the scrungly little guys in reblogs or asks. I boost the best propaganda I see and try to boost equally for everyone. I don't accept propaganda that’s post-1970 or from non-film appearances. When sending your propaganda, please don't send me too many pics or videos at once (I max out at about four per ask.)

The views expressed in the propaganda are not my own. I don’t alter submissions beyond fixing obvious spelling mistakes. I do choose the poll pics, purposely trying to pick the silliest ones possible for this contest; if you think I could do even sillier, send me one I can use instead. If you think a contestant needs more propaganda, send me an ask with some and let me know if you'd like it added to the poll post if they make it to the next round.

“Who won the major hottie tournaments?” Eartha Kitt and Toshiro Mifune are the reigning hotness champions. They are both living it up by the pool in the sunshine, as far from the shadow realm as possible.

“The....the shadow realm?” All hotties who fail to continue in a hotness tournament are sent to the shadow realm, far below the crust of the earth where the sun never shines, a dark and dismal and gloomy place. (Boris Karloff keeps making everyone try his sherry-based guacamole.)

“Was [this famous person] submitted to any of the tournaments?” Try a tag search for them (ie, [#famous person name] in my search bar). If you still haven’t found your hottie, they either did not fit the criteria of working in movies from 1910-1970, weren't convincingly scrungly in their submission, or were not submitted at all.

“My FAQ isn’t on here :(” send me an ask! I love hearing from you guys—just please check these basics first.

Thank you for being here! Enjoy the polls.

Tournament schedule post-hiatus:

Ongoing: Dracula Daily casting polls

Starting September 26th: Scrungly Little Guys contest (gender neutral)

After that: Ultimate Hottie Tournament (top brackets of the hot men & hot women competing together)

TBD: Hottest On-Screen Couples (Astaire and Rogers, Bogie and Bacall, etc)

TBD: Horror Hotties (Frankensteins, Draculas, Brides, etc.)

TBD: Dandy Detectives (Marples, Sherlocks, Nancy Drews, etc.)

fun mini polls that pit sets of characters from the same movie together, like the Philadelphia Story or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ones (these can be found in the #minis tag)

[avelera]

I feel like I don't have the spoons for this, nor the understanding of real-life PTSD enough to explore it, but I feel like it's worth examining Jayce's arc for signs of PTSD. Much has been made of the canonical mental illnesses and PTSD of characters like Jinx, and I've mentioned that I think Jayce might have generalized clinical anxiety, but I think it's worth looking at how much of his behavior might be PTSD related even before he goes to the Anomaly future.

Some possible places I'd look:

Jayce has been getting fed paranoia by Marcus and by the tension that is being deliberately ratcheted up by Silco and Jinx. Yes, he says awful, bigoted things to Viktor on the bridge, but it is worth pointing out that he's not saying this in a vacuum, there are people in proximity to him deliberately stoking his paranoia and that of the city for their own ends, literally Marcus is gaslighting him actively by telling him the Firelights are responsible and the best way to keep people safe is shut down the bridge.

The fight in the Shimmer Factory gets more wild to me every time I watch. Jayce should not be there for so many reasons but one of them is Jayce is not a fighter. I think his video game counterpart sort of obscures this, but unlike Vi who has spent her whole life fighting AND in prison for years, Jayce has never, ever wielded that hammer before. He didn't even have it until the day before! And suddenly he's up against the Shimmer-infused berserkers who are some of the toughest fighters in the whole show. He almost gets his head cut off, if not for features he built into the hammer like weightlessness and the shield, he'd be dead, and then he makes what I call the, "Jayce is Making Bad Decisions" Face (I need to make a gifset of this face btw, he makes it a couple times, also while resurrecting Viktor).

Ok I might make fun of the Jayce is Making Bad Decisions face, BUT on a serious note, it's clear the Fortiche animators are doing a superb job showing someone who has gone into "Adrenaline Mode". REAL fighters do not want adrenaline. Adrenaline fucks up your reaction times and makes you shaky and turns off your higher brain functions. I've been in a fight when fear adrenaline kicks in and you just start wildly swinging to get people away from you and that is exactly what happened when Jayce's face got scrunched up and he started shooting wildly, he just wanted to stop the threat because he's never fought before, unlike Vi. And then he kills a kid and the triumph of his first fight against an uncomplicated enemy just dies and btw, never returns except in that moment fighting more Shimmer berserkers and Renni but those are clear self defense and there's no triumph in it.

BRO gets HIT BY A ROCKET, has a pure panic response leaving living people who need his help in the chamber to save Viktor, and he doesn't go back as far as we know.

Ok so the things that me, as not an expert would be curious to note as possible PTSD responses would be:

Jayce not leaving the lab after the attack except 1) to go to the funeral (where he's attacked AGAIN) 2) to comfort Caitlyn after Mel basically tells him to, 3) to make weapons for Caitlyn's team specifically to keep a small group of people safe, not arm an entire army. Besides that, it looks like he spends all his time holed up in the lab, even after Viktor is gone, because that's his safe space and I think I read once that PTSD has a way of shrinking your world down to just the people and places you trust.

Dragging that hammer around with him in the Anomaly future. Look, Jayce is a city boy, he has no survival instincts, but it wasn't just a bad idea because it broke his leg, it was actively detrimental to his chances of survival because lugging an anvil around drained him of water and calories. Bro had a lot less chance of survival with it, but he thought he was surrounded by zombies (he wasn't, they're all dead and they're all controlled by Viktor, we learn he was never in danger, though I don't blame him for that). But that could also be a PTSD response, his actual emotional support hammer.

Clamming up and not talking to Mel about what happened because she's not in his circle of trust anymore, it's more or less shrunk down to just Viktor (once he can save him) and Cait, maybe.

Ok as usual this got longer than I intended by just... some things that are in my mind right now.

[orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket]

The collective cultural memory of the '60s suggests the decade was a safe haven for male femininity. Long hair on both genders abounds in retellings of the era—the hippie is a soft and shaggy archetype. But most of the imagery now associated with the '60s didn't arrive until the end of the decade. The United States was slow to metabolize shifting gender norms; years after the Beatles were televised into American homes, men could still catch flak for wearing their hair past their collars. "People would chase you for ten blocks, screaming, 'Beatle!' They were out of their fucking minds—that was the reality of the sixties," said artist Ronnie Cutrone. "Nobody had long hair—you were a fucking freak, you were a fruit, you were not like the rest of the world." Trans punk singer Jayne County similarly remembered getting flak in high school for growing her hair out like the Beatles. "I walked all the way [to the record store] and back and every once in a while somebody would yell out their car, 'Sissy!' or they'd yell, 'Look, it's Ringo!' because I had a little Beatles haircut and everything," she said. "Way back in the dark ages, when I was in high school, people still didn't know what gay or queer was or anything like that." That the word "Beatle" could ever have been used as a homophobic slur—that it fit right next to "sissy" in the vocabulary of bigots—seems outrageous by contemporary standards. In retrospect, the Beatles' gender transgressions look as tame as their innocent melodicism. But the Stooges grew up in an environment that punished deviations from normative masculinity, and being bored numb by their surroundings, they sought as much punishment as possible.

Sasha Geffen, Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary

[stardustedknuckles]

I was gonna put it in the tags of a post aabria made but didn't want to be like "hey also my thing!" on a serious post so like. She's pointed out that people's unwillingness to understand that people in the citadel have been and are being good to Suvi absolutely sucks ass and she's right. I admire Suvi as a character and Aabria as the player so much as someone who grew up in church - not just in it but of it. Dad was a pastor, I was in the choir, I taught classes, the whole shebang.

Almost everything about church was fucked to hell, looking back, and I'll carry damage and guilt from it for a longer time yet. Possibly forever. But the people I learned from, admired, befriended, and surrounded myself with were not evil colonizers looking to eradicate every other religion or force convert people or what have you. They were just people living under an ideology that did a whole lot of harm to people outside of it and demanded, as part of its tenets, that you restrict yourself from mingling too much with the Others lest you be confused and turn away from what is written. Hell the Citadel hasn't shown itself to be even that pervasive. I haven't heard a single person question Suvi's conviction to the work of the citadel because of the company she keeps.

Anyway my point is that there is absolutely no reason for Suvi to turn on or even grossly doubt the Citadel, questions about the spells on her nonwithstanding. Aabria is playing on a level of refusing to meta game that is incredible to watch and which makes her point of view very easy to relate to. Suvi's community is stepping up for her. Her friends love her, AND they are upset for valid reasons and puzzling through their own ways of looking at the world - ways that do not come with a manual/guide the way life at the Citadel does. Nothing has been laid before Suvi at this point that would warrant more than a few concerns, let alone full divestment from the Citadel and everyone else Suvi has ever loved, certainly not in the name of two people she would give her life for but who do not in any way have their shit together.

They're just people. Steel is a good person. She is kind, she is sincere, frighteningly intelligent, and a fierce advocate not only for those who are hers but those outside the citadel who deserve respect for the way they see the world and move through it.

Steel is also the right hand of the empire. That is, in fact, the point.

I'm sorry a lot of y'all can only handle stories that soothe hard choices with "well they were bad/mean to you/bigots anyway" and lay it on thick until the moment the character has had enough. That's not actually how any of this works and the realer view of how someone like Suvi would in fact view the world and her place in it is airtight. The chops on Aabria for sticking to it and on Brennan for refusing to mark citadel citizens as evil across the board (or hardly at all) is incredible and the refusal to entertain those ideas as a fan is in fact a skill issue in nearly every case.

[blazinghotfoggynights]

I am so happy to see a canonical badass also be canonically queer. I can't tell you how many amazing men I know who were closeted bi because it wasn't an option for them to be open.

I'm also raising an eyebrow at the writers since we now know that without Fox's chokehold on them, and KR writing nonsense, they can spin a good story, surprise us, and keep us entertained.

I want to see Buck discover who he is outside of the 118, the Diazes best friend, and the man who is always left behind. I want to see Buck spoiled and taken care of for once. Instead of him planning and executing the grand gestures, it's time for someone to do it for him.

I stand by what I said in a post weeks ago. Eddie Diaz was coded to appeal to the more conservative of the population and I have a theory on who pushed that and why. It is obvious who that character was supposed to click with. I believe he was written in a way to prevent Buddie and if you look closely, whoever "developed" him did so in a way that baited Buddie but kept it subtle for those who would be offended if that happened.

911 goes to a more open-minded network and we get characters who are much more developed in just four episodes? That wouldn't be possible if the elements weren't already there but lying dormant. I wonder why those character traits weren't tapped at Fox. Hmm?

If fans don't see the potential for not just season 7, but season 8 and beyond, to yield amazing character development and story arcs, you are not paying attention. There are so many areas that have yet to be explored and so many loose ends from Fox and KR. Just cleaning up the mess from the prior powers could give the show a good two to three seasons.

In my heart of hearts, Buddie is endgame. Even in this episode, Buck gushes about Eddie. He gets that look in his eye and sings his praises just before kissing Tommy, who is literally a physical specimen reminiscent of Buck but a copy of Eddie in every other way.

Do I think Buck and Tommy will go anywhere? I do. Just like Buck and Taylor, I think it could be serious. I could also see Tommy figuring out Buck is into him because of how much like Eddie he is.

But, I am willing to celebrate the victory of seeing someone figure things out, explore life, and love it.

I told you all in an earlier post, it isn't uncommon to have a sexuality epiphany, I hate calling it a crisis, later in life. Ask me how I know.

Also, major props to Oliver Stark and Lou Ferrigno, Jr. It's easier now, but it's not easy and they are going to catch hate from the bigots.