#but i feel strongly about this

[arcadialedger]

Allosexuals— read up on what not to do in terms of how to treat aspec people, allonormativity, and checking your allo privilege.

I’ve been talking with a guy and we’ve really hit it off, and we met up today. Before the date/ meet up, I stopped by work and told my friends about it. They were so excited for me, and I let them know where I’d be and when for safety.

All was well, until my middle aged gay male co worker who had overheard said “remember to practice safe sex tonight”.

And I looked him dead in the eye and said “I’m ace”. Given our work location this was a particularly inappropriate comment to make while on the job too (I plan to announce what I’ve been doing in my travels and adventures this past year once I’m back home and it’s safe to do so, but if you come back to this post after finding out you’re going to be like “holy shit”.).

I thought, as a queer man himself, he’d say “oh sorry”. Instead, he said “So he’s going on a date with you and can’t even get that?”.

I think he thought it was funny. It was not fucking funny. I turn to my friends so uncomfortable and on the verge of tears and they’re like “ohh, don’t listen to him you’re fine”. They know my history and how triggering that was for me. As a 24 year old who hasn’t even been kissed and is incredibly insecure about it it was embarrassing for that assumption to be made about me. It made me so nervous, anxious, and uncomfortable before my date. Even for allo people, not everyone likes or wants to have sex on the first date? Like why is this being assumed of me, a young woman, by a middle aged man. We can be sex positive without being acephobic, people.

Not only is just inappropriate in ANY context for a middle aged man who barely knows me to comment on my sex life and sexuality, but it’s a fantastic example of allonormativity and what makes this world so hard for aspec people to navigate, and how our allonormative sex crazed society treats us.

For him, it was a joke. For me, it was just a perfect example of acephobia and being othered and even lowkey shamed for being who I am. And given my history, it set off a trauma response. Which gets me to, beyond just being creepy, that you don’t know people’s stories so think twice about what you say.

Maybe this seems like an over exaggeration or no big deal to you allo folks, but as an aspec person it felt demeaning and disrespectful.

So please— check your allo privilege and remember us aspec folks are valid too. I jokingly told him to be a good ally as a signal to back off, and hopefully my comments and reaction will make him think twice in the future. He also said I was the first asexual he’d met and I was like… clearly. That is evident. Also, I only mention he’s gay to show how discrimination can come from allosexuals within the queer community. I am in fact, biromantic.

[killjoy-toast]

I don’t know if this makes sense, but: 

To me Crowley is 100% a Barbie, but at the same time he has massive ken-ergy. Meanwhile Aziraphael is only giving ken. These assertions aren’t based on gender really, I’m purely going of vibes here. 

[libraryleopard]

🔥 for interview with the vampire?

One time I saw an interview with the showrunner where he said AMC was hoping for it to be a long-running show with possibly around 10 seasons and as much as I loved season 1 that statement filled me with dread because 1) I have heard nothing particularly good about the Vampire Chronicles after Queen of the Damned and I imagine the writers would have to do some serious work to get coherent TV out of the later books and 2) As a Black Sails fan I am a big fan of TV shows that concisely run for as long as they need and no longer in order to tell a complete story!

[fieldlands]

i feel like it's absolutely crucial in the social justice world to take "he a little confused but he got the spirit" and similar sentiments/situations as a Win. intent is so much more important than saying it right the first time! if someone is approaching with scuffed language and incorrect terms but they're visibly being as polite as they know how, that person is a friend and should be treated better than what their words might invite in someone else's mouth.

[ir-dr]

Day 3630 - 29 May 2024

39

.//projectTiGER

[stealtharchaeologist]

OH MY GOD YOU FOUND IT. YOU FOUND THE SCENE.

This is THE SCENE that made me start liking Ryou Bakura. LET ME EXPLAIN

Prior to playing The Falsebound Kingdom, I was only familiar with Ryou from the first couple of seasons of the English anime (yes, the 4Kids dub), and a tiny, TINY bit of the manga (when he runs crying after failing Bobasa's test). My favorite character was Yami Bakura, and all I knew of Ryou was, basically, he was a pathetic, timid coward whose only purpose was to stand in YB's way. I found him annoying, basically.

This was the mid-aughts, when the manga wasn't even finished yet! I was like, 11 or 12, just discovering fandom on the internet, and had found out that the final arc of YGO was taking place in ANCIENT EGYPT! I was SO excited! So I had found this incredibly sketchy scanlation site and every week, when a new chapter came out, I would sit there for like a half hour as the images loaded on our incredibly awful dial-up connection.

Yami Bakura WAS my favorite character. But I was discovering Thief King Bakura and falling head over heels for him. I'm not sure that I had admitted I liked TKB more yet, but I was there. (I also, at the time, was discovering the Queen's Thief series and Jing: King of Bandits, and therefore decided that I very much liked fictional thieves in general.)

So I somehow procured a copy of The Falsebound Kingdom and was playing it, Yugi version first because I have always hated Kaiba, and we finally find Ryou, and I'm like *rolls eyes* okay, whatever, and then he says all this. And I'm like "...???" And he SUCCEEDS. And I'm like "?!?!?!"

Wait, so Ryou can be a badass thief, too?!

And as I continue playing the game, Ryou proves himself to me. He ends up being my strongest duelist besides Yami, and the fastest by far. My entire strategy started to revolve around sending the majority of my army through the middle of the battlefield to take the enemy head-on, while Ryou, with his incredible speed, ran around the edges and started attacking the enemy fortress from the back. Then, by the time Yami and the rest got there, the leader was so weak that they couldn't stand up to Yami at all.

All along, I am becoming more and more fond of Ryou.

Then the Big Bad of the game decides to mind control Joey, Tea, and Ryou. And I'm like, "Ohoho, Yami Bakura isn't going to like that."

It's all very dramatic with Yami (or maybe little Yugi?) rescuing Tea, and Mai saving Joey, and we finally find Ryou again but it's not him. I was right, Yami Bakura was displeased. However, he saw the game we were all playing and decided he wanted to sow some chaos.

Cue the hardest goddamned level in the game.

Mind, up until this point, I had beaten every level in one or two attempts, three at the most when I was being dumb about something. But trying to catch up with Yami Bakura and defeat him before he burned our castle to the ground (with everyone inside) was insane. I probably went through 20+ attempts, pulling my hair out, just trying to find a single monster that was fast enough to get to our castle first.

I finally realized that the key... was Ryou. It was his monsters that were so fast. They were the only ones who stood a chance.

Even with Ryou's best monster, Ansatsu, leading Yami's party, it took like three attempts to catch Yami Bakura. But boy, when I caught him, I absolutely crushed him with Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl and I loved it.

Ryou wakes up, and says meekly that he hopes he didn't cause too much trouble. Yami replies, "We're just glad to have you back." I'm like, damn straight. At that moment, if I never saw Yami Bakura again, I would be happy.

That game literally flipped how I felt about Ryou Bakura and Yami Bakura. That game is THE reason I like Ryou as much as I do. From that moment on, I paid more attention to him and found all his little charms, how incredibly brave and loyal he is, and how goddamned weird he is, too.

... all because he's a little bit like Thief King Bakura. 🥰

[anxiouslittlecarrot]

I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.

Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.

That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.

And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.

Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.

This movie has the potential to radically change the way we collectively see Barbie into what Ruth Handler originally intended, I’m so very excited

[sprolden]

i could never be american because whenever I get a big drink I'm like oh great now I have to drink this big drink. i have to take care of this big drink they gave me. everything is terrible in the world

[kittyprincessofcats]

ICJ Ruling

Okay, let's get into this.

First of all, I get the frustration at the court not ordering a ceasefire. I was disappointed and frustrated at first too, since a ceasefire was the biggest and most important preliminary measure South Africa was requesting - and of course we just all want this horror to finally end for the people in Gaza. So I get the frustration and disappointment, I really do.

However, I do think this ruling is still a major win for South Africa, Palestine, and international law as a whole and here's why:

The court acknowledged that it has jurisdiction over this case and completely dismissed Israel's request to throw out the case as a whole. It will now determine at the merits stage (that will probably take years) whether Israel is actually commiting genocide.

The court acknowledged that Palestinians are a "distinct national or ethnic group and therefore deserving of protection under the genocide convention". Pull this out next time someone tells you "there's no such thing as Palestinians, they're all just Arabs".

The court acknowledged very unambiguously that "at least some" of Israel's actions being genocidal in nature is "plausible". South Africa has a case, officially. Israel is accused of genocide, in a way the ICJ deems "plausible", officially. This is huge. (And seriously, how freaking satisfying was it to hear all of those genocidal statements by Israeli politicians read out loud and used as justification for this rulling?)

The court might not have ordered a "ceasefire" in those words, but they did order Israel to "immediately end all genocidal acts" (which includes killing and injuring Palestinians) and submit proof that they actually did. How are they going to comply with this ruling without at least severly reducing or changing what they're doing in Gaza?

In fact, this wording might actually be more appropriate for a genocide (vs a war), as author and journalist Ali Abunimah notes on Twitter:

He's completely right. Israel lost today, by overwhelming majority (I mean, 15 to 2? I heard people predict the rulings would be very close, like 9 judges vs 8, but instead we got 15 to 2 (and even 16 to 1 on the humanitarian aid). Holy shit.) The court disimissed almost everything Israel's side of lawyers said, while acknowledging that South Africa's accusations are "plausible".

And this is important especially because of Mr Abunimah's second tweet there^. Because the question is, where do we go from here?

This ruling means that Israel is officially /possibly/ commiting genocide and that should have huge international consequences. The rest of the world now HAS to take these accusations seriously and stop arming and supporting Israel - and if they won't do it on their own, we, the people, have to make them. This is THE moment to rise up all around the world, especially in the countries most supportive of Israel (the US, the UK, Germany): Protest, call your representatives and demand a ceasefire and an end of arms deliveries to Israel.

We now have a legal case to back our demands: If Israel is, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" commiting genocide, then all of our governments are, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" guiltly of aiding in genocide. And we need to hold that over their heads and demand better. We need to do that right now and in huge numbers. Most politicians only care about themselves and saving their skin. We have to make them realize that they could be accused of aiding in genocide.

(As a German, I'm thinking of Germany here in particular: After South Africa's hearing, our government dismissed their case as having "no basis" - how are they going to keep saying that now that the ICJ officially thinks otherwise? Over the last months, people here have been arrested at protests for calling what's happening in Gaza a genocide. How are the police supposed to legally keep doing that now that the ICJ has officially deemed this accusation "plausible"? I used to be scared to use the word "genocide" at protests or write it on my protest signs - not anymore, have fun trying to arrest me for that when the ICJ literally has my back on this one 🖕🏻.)

So yeah - don't be defeatist about this, don't let Israel's narrative that they "won" (they didn't) take over. This might not be everything we wanted, but it's still a good result. Don't let what the court didn't say ("ceasefire"), distract you from the very important things that they did say. Let this be your motivation to get loud and active, especially if you live in any country that supports Israel. Put pressure on your governments to not be complicit in genocide, you now officially have the highest international court on your side.

[egophiliac]

finally got some time to finish these guys up! which is sort of ironic considering I started these because I wanted to draw Malleus with a Dragapult, and then I just didn't for a million years!

Malleus has the aforementioned Dragapult, except it's a super special non-canon color Dragapult (like an anime-only form that you could get in-game exclusively through some limited-time event where you have to show up in-person at a specific location in Japan) (it has some wacky overpowered exclusive move/form and the OT is listed as Malleus) (so like that kind of ridiculous specialness) (Leona is extremely salty about this). also hoards and hoards of Dreepy. Dreepy LOVE Malleus. they take naps on his horns inbetween begging him to throw them across the island at mach speeds.

Lilia has a Drampa and a bunch of Woobat that he hasn't actually caught, they just follow him around in swarms because they sense a kinship with him. (also breaking my own rule again to say that he had a Mawile in the past, because...I just really wanted to give him a Mawile...)

Sebek has Sandile for obvious reasons, and also a Pikachu that bullies him relentlessly. :(

Silver has a shiny Corvisquire; I really went back-and-forth on also giving him an Aegislash, but...hm. those pokedex entries though. he can stick with just one for now.

(I hadn't planned on the shiny for him, but after I'd decided on the Corvisquire line and was looking it up for reference, I realized that shiny Rookidee is gold and then turns silver when it evolves and I lost my entire goddamn mind)

[k9effect]

Tiktok's censorship of words like rape, kill, murder, abortion etc. etc. as well as censoring hard to hear topics, over the past few years has deeply contributed to the sanitisation of the internet and therefore directly resulted in the birth of "fandom purists" and the destruction of old fandom culture (the death of "don't like, don't read", "ship and let ship" mindsets as well as safe spaces for dark and "immoral"/unethical storytelling i.e "dead dove: do not eat") in a way that has fundamentally changed the mindsets of people who are new to fandom spaces and now view these such topics as wildly inappropriate for any social space as well as deeming anyone who is intrigued by them narratively or creatively as "immoral" and a bad person. In this essay I will

[a-method-in-it]

#technically the human body randomly generates itself anyway. whats a few more spleens tags via @goldcrescent

The median artery is an artery that is occasionally found in humans and other animals. [1] It is present in 35% of individuals born in the late 20th century. [2]

occasionally I’m reminded that biology just sucks to think about

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[jorenilee]

good ace attorns

[ulgapodatkowa]

i said it once before and I'll say it again: queer community. the calypso's birthday episode is fucking pride man. and for izzy, oh for izzy, to be able to finally be free like that? he doesn't understand wee john's 'look' at first but he knows how it makes him feel, so he gets one as well. and for such a repressed queer man to be able to walk out in drag it's huge. AND he sings a love song!! la vie en rose, that's a staple of love repertoire. so izzy feels comfortable, at home enough to be able to go on the deck and show himself as a queer man that loves. he finally accepts that about himself enough to show it. he kisses wee john's hand. he puts on a show. and the crew loves it, sings along with him at the end. one more song indeed, cocksuckers!

[finnglas]

Sexually explicit material is not immoral, actually.