#doesn't mean you're not marginalized somehow

[stranger-rants]

Steve gets to be a Bi King for doing the bare minimum of being friends with a lesbian, even after calling Jonathan A Queer...

...but Billy gets called a f*gg*t by his father, and y'all headcanon that Billy is homophobic and he would hate crime Robin or Will and call them slurs.

Make it make sense.

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[incognit0slut]

Hypothetically

Chronically single, you suggest a pact with your best friend to start a family together when you turn forty.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x bau fem reader

Category: fluff/comfort

Warnings: marriage and baby talk, reader is insecure because she feels left out

A/n: This is my entry for the kid fic challenge by @imagining-in-the-margins! This was like a breath of fresh air from all the smut I’ve been writing

"Do you want to have a baby with me?"

The scalding coffee burned his tongue as your question lingered in the air. Spencer cleared his throat awkwardly and patted his chest, his eyes drifting towards you. "Uh... what?"

"Hypothetically," you replied, the tap of your pen echoing against the round table between you. "It's like a pact. If we're both still single in the future, we get married to one another and, well, start a family together."

Spencer felt the clamminess of his palms as he set his mug down, trying to steady himself. He considered you as one of the closest people in his life, if not his best friend, and he was accustomed to your random questions, but this sudden topic of conversation seemed to strike a nerve.

"Where..." he began, wiping his palm along his pants. "...where is this coming from?"

You shrugged casually, the tapping of your pen momentarily ceasing. "Just a thought. I mean, we're both at that age where these things start to cross our minds, right?"

Spencer swallowed, trying to push down the unease rising in his chest. "Yeah, I guess so," he muttered, but as he studied you, he noticed the tension in your shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Your gaze flickered away for a moment before you sighed, slumping against your chair.

"I have a wedding coming up this weekend." Spencer frowned, not understanding what you were trying to say. You continued, "And another one next week, and guess what? Two of my cousins are getting married next month."

"What does that have to do with...?" His voice trailed off as realization dawned on him. "Ah, I see."

But you weren't finished. Somehow, the thoughts that had lingered in your mind for the past few days spilled out right then and there, in the middle of broad daylight when you were supposed to be focusing on the case you were working on.

"And a close friend I went to high school with just gave birth while another friend from college announced she's two months pregnant. And look at me," you exclaimed, your arms flying around. "No wedding. No pregnancy. Spencer, I don't even have a boyfriend, heck, I forgot what it's like to go out on a date!"

He watched as your brow furrowed into a frown, and although your demeanor was all over the place, he couldn't help but notice how you still managed to look pretty.

"Spence?" You asked, nudging his leg with your foot under the table. "Are you listening to me?"

He blinked, momentarily pulled from his thoughts by your voice. "Sorry," he replied. "I'm listening."

You gave him a skeptical look, but the tension in your shoulders seemed to ease slightly as you leaned back in your chair.

"I just... I don't know, I feel like I'm left behind." You sighed, running a hand through your hair. "I mean, I'm happy for my friends and all, but sometimes it feels like everyone's moving forward but me. Like I'm stuck in this... this rut."

Spencer wasn't sure how to respond. On one hand, he knew how it felt to want something that seemed out of reach, but on the other hand, he felt like it wasn't his place to offer advice when he wasn't even sure what the future held for him.

"I get it," he finally said, trying to gather his thoughts. The least he could do was try to offer some comfort. "But just because you haven't reached those milestones yet doesn't mean you won't get there eventually."

"But what if it doesn't happen? What if I'm still all alone and nobody loves me when I'm gray and old?"

He frowned at you. "I'd still love you when you're gray and old."

"Platonically. You love me as much as you love JJ. Or Emily. Or Penny, or even Morgan." You leaned over the table. "I want to be loved passionately by someone who is head over heels for me, who can't imagine a life without me. I want to feel that kind of happiness."

His frown deepened. "I don't think you should find happiness in another person."

"You're missing the point," you groaned, crossing your arms. "I'm not saying I want to depend on someone else for my happiness. But is it too much to ask for someone to share it with? To feel like I'm someone's everything and not just another friend in the group?"

His expression softened as he listened, a sense of familiarity washing over him. He remembered feeling the same thing once, or maybe more than once; he wasn't sure. He had lost count of the times he felt his life was falling short.

But he realized the more he thought about the why—why was he so different? why couldn't he find love?—the more he felt worthless, and he hated that. So what was the best thing he did to ignore those thoughts?

Bury himself in work, because to him, pushing those feelings aside was easier than confronting them. But now, as he looked at you, it felt like he was seeing his own reflection and your words hit him harder than he expected.

"No," he quietly agreed. "It's not too much to ask for."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm tired of waiting for life to happen to me." Your gaze slowly met his. "So I came up with a plan."

His throat felt dry as he recalled how this conversation started in the first place. "The... baby plan?"

You nodded enthusiastically, sliding into the seat next to him.

"Think about it. If we're both still single when we're..." You paused, furrowing your brow as you did a quick calculation. "Forty? Yeah, let's say we're both still single when we're forty, with no partners, or like, no friends with benefits?"

You shook your head.

“Just... with no one in our lives—we get married. You and me."

He blinked, trying to process your proposal. It was unexpected, to say the least, but there was a strange logic to it that he couldn't quite shake. The idea of marrying his best friend as a backup plan was both absurd and oddly comforting.

"But what about... love?" he asked cautiously. "Wasn't that what you wanted?"

You paused, considering his question before responding. "I mean, I don't think it's impossible," you said, leaning back in your seat. "Haven't you ever heard of the saying, 'Marry your best friend'?"

His gaze lingered on you, his heart beating hard against his chest. "You're saying that we can fall in love?"

Your eyes met his, and a small smile tugged at the corners of your lips. "Who knows?" you replied softly. "Stranger things have happened."

Spencer shouldn't entertain the possibility. After all, who knew what could happen in the future? It seemed like an absurd thought, but as he stared at you, it was hard not to imagine a life with you as his wife.

He imagined you in a white dress, walking down the aisle towards him with a radiant smile on your face. He pictured you both in the house you had just bought, dancing joyfully around the empty rooms as you unpacked boxes together.

Then thoughts of you being pregnant with his child—or maybe even children—filled his mind, and he envisioned a future where your kids would run around in the backyard with a pet dog trailing behind.

And then he considered the prospect of growing old with you, watching as your children eventually started families of their own while you found comfort in each other's company. All of these possibilities didn't seem so bad, because if anyone could understand him on a deep level, it was definitely you.

Maybe this crazy plan of yours wasn't so crazy after all.

"I... I guess it's not impossible," he finally admitted. Then, not wanting to seem too eager, he added, "Hypothetically speaking."

"Of course," you replied with a smile. "Hypothetically speaking."

Suddenly feeling flustered by your gaze, Spencer looked away and focused on his coffee, bringing the mug to his lips. Then you heard laughter and footsteps drawing closer, and soon Derek and Emily entered the room. Their eyes immediately landed on the two of you, sitting closely together at the table.

"What are you children whispering about?" Derek's voice interrupted, his eyebrows raised curiously as he glanced between you.

You didn't miss a beat. “Spencer and I are having a baby together."

Spencer choked on his coffee, his eyes widening in shock as he coughed and sputtered. You quickly moved to pat his back.

"Well, we're gonna get married first, right, Spence?" you added with a grin, glancing at him expectantly.

Spencer finally managed to regain his composure, clearing his throat awkwardly as he shot you a sideways glance. "Um, yeah, of course," he stammered, his cheeks still tinged with embarrassment. "Hypothetically."

Derek and Emily exchanged bemused glances, a silent conversation passing between them. Emily's curiosity seemed to win out as she lifted a hand, turning her attention back to you. "Care to explain?"

"We were discussing our backup plan."

"Backup plan?" Derek echoed. 

"Yeah," you replied with a nod. "In case neither of us finds the right person by the time we're, oh, I don't know, forty or so, we figured we'd marry each other and start a family."

Derek placed a hand over his chest, feigning hurt. "And you chose Pretty Boy over me?"

"I'm not going to compete with all your lady friends," you shot back, rising from your seat. "Come on, Spence, let's grab some lunch and brainstorm baby names."

He stood up, giving you a pointed look.

"Or do you want to discuss how we'd make those babies in the future?"

"Well, I was thinking of Amelia if it's a girl..."

You grinned, linking your arm through his before guiding him towards the door. Derek and Emily observed the natural closeness between you two, how you were practically clinging to him and how he seemed to be comfortable with it.

Derek turned to Emily as you disappeared down the hallway. "Do you think they'd actually get married when they hit forty?"

Emily shook her head. "Nope," she replied confidently. "I give it a year until he's already down on one knee."

He laughed, nodding in agreement. With the way Spencer's gaze lingered on you with unmistakable affection, it seemed like it was only a matter of time.

[the-library-alcove]

One repeated refrain I keep seeing from the Pro-Palestinian crowd, from the most virulently Jew-hating to the most Jew-sympathetic, is pretty straightforward.

"Well, after 75 years of how the Palestinians have been treated, can you blame them for the 7/10 attack?"

And the response that I've been itching to give to that...

"So, you're saying that the Nakba was acceptable back in 1948? Because after 1000+ years of mistreatment by Muslim Arabs, including multiple massacres and ethnic cleansing in living memory, that means that the Jews were justified with the Nakba--indeed, they were restrained, because they could have easily done so much worse, and the Palestinians Arabs hadn't had any mistreatment yet. There was a clear side who had been the victims (the Jews) and a clear side who had been the victimizers for over a thousand years, as the Muslims been the ones doing the mistreatment to the Jews. If you're saying that 75 years of marginalization justifies mass rape and murder, then the Israelis in 1948 would have been justified in killing every single proto-Palestinian Arab by that same metric.

"No? That's different? How? How is it different? Explain to me how it's different without using the word 'colonizer', because a vast number of the Jews who lived there were native and had never been living elsewhere. Sure, they were just a portion of the Jewish population as a whole, but so are the Palestinian militants. Would someone whose family had been butchered in the 1929 Hebron Massacre not be justified in taking out their hate on other Arabs? Because that's the standard you're promoting now. How is it different?

"On what ethical grounds is it okay to say that the Palestinians deserve to get to rape and murder for 75 years of marginalization, and yet that the Jews simply displacing them but allowing them to continue living, sparing their lives after 1200+ years of brutal suppression... that act is somehow the most horrendous and monstrous act in the entire history of mankind, as some Pro-Palestinian activists have explicitly said?"

"Explain to me how 75 years of mistreatment justifies mass murder, but 1000+ years of legally recognized second-class brutal near-slavery doesn't justify displacement of your former oppressors."

[strwberri-milk]

Hello can I request for Rafayel x Fem! reader head cannons (you may add the other guys if you think it applies). It’s sort of angsty but (imo) mainly funny. 

Rafayel is making his move, trying to show that he’s genuinely interested in the reader, but to his dismay she’s not getting it. The reader is pretty dense, so at the start she genuinely doesn’t get it. Later on, as Rafayel makes it a bit more obvious, and she picks up on it, but the is in denial. It could a be mix of insecurities, and not wanting to ruin the friendship, but she’d rather assume that he’s being friendly or that he’s just like that because they’ve grown closer as friends. So now the reader is in this weird state of being both dense and in denial while Rafayel is struggling. To top it all off, I think Rafayel would especially be frustrated when he does this nice bordering romantic gesture for the reader and all he gets as a reply is “oh, thanks dude!”

I hope this is all coherent. Thank you and have a nice day!

makes perfect sense!! i love. dense object of affection failing to see affection being given to them grr

Rafayel is rich, famous, and not to mention drop dead gorgeous. He's constantly surrounded by upper society and you just somehow became lucky enough to meet him during a chance encounter and now. somehow, he considers you his closest friend. Any of those things on their own would intimidate you greatly but the fact that he has all of them together makes it hard for you to believe he'll look at you as anything other than his friend.

Rafayel however looks at you and sees the life he wishes to have more than anything. He just wants quiet afternoons with you, to ramble out whatever thoughts he has in his mind, cook and take care of you. At first he was under the impression that his feelings were subtle. He thinks he's a good actor and for the most part he is very good at concealing his feelings but when you don't respond to anything romantic that he does he first thinks he wasn't obvious enough and ups the ante. This makes him become even more obvious to everybody around the two of you except for you for whatever reason.

It's gotten bad enough that he tried to surprise you with the works. Flowers, your favourite treats, some other trinkets that made him think of you all wrapped up in a pretty basket sitting on your doorstep when you came home and yet all he got in response was a string of emojis and a very platonic thank you. He's doing his best not to rip out his hair at how dense you are, finally realising that if he doesn't tell you straight up you'll never recognise his feelings for you.

You on the other hand had noticed that he was getting more romantic with you. You'd begun observing the things he does around other people versus you, knowing that he treats you differently than others by a great margin but also refusing to attribute such behaviours with a romantic intention. After all, why would he pick you out of literally anybody in the world that he could have?

You two are spending the evening together as per usual, Rafayel insisting you come over for dinner because he's received an exceptionally fresh batch of fish tonight and you absolutely have to try some. Conversation flows easily over the sound of your cutlery against the glass and you can't help but notice the soft look in Rafayel's eyes. It's as though he's dropped all his walls just for you in this moment, cheek resting against his palm as he listens to you speak.

"You really don't know how I feel about you?"

Your eyes widen as he speaks for the first time in a while. You were going on and on about something and he was more than happy to just listen to you do so, sitting back in his chair as he crosses his arms. You decide to play more dumb, biting back the doubt in your mind that he actually means what you hope he does.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you laugh, taking another bite of the food.

"Do you really think I'd do all of this for just anybody?" he asks with a chuckle, gesturing to the table.

"I - I mean we're close friends, aren't we? That's what I thought this was," you stutter, averting his gaze.

"We've been close for a while and you told me yourself I'm your best friend. You keep people at an arm's length and you just seem so lonely I don't want to even think about anything that could ruin our friendship."

You ramble a little, Rafayel carefully considering your words as you continue give him excuse after excuse as to why he wouldn't return your feelings for him.

It doesn't take him long to get fed up, scoffing a little as he comes around the table to stand beside you. He slips his arms around your shoulders, sighing happily as he nuzzles his face into your neck.

"You're really dense, did you know that?" he says against your skin, looking up at you.

"I do so much for you and you still don't know how I feel about you," he whines a little, resting his hands on your shoulders.

"I just didn't want to get ahead of myself," you finally admit, mind spinning from how close he is to you right now.

"Well, you aren't getting ahead of yourself at all. If it takes you even more to finally believe me then I guess I can keep going."

Despite the supposed annoyance in his voice you can tell by the way he slumps against you that he's glad the two of you are finally on the same page. You can't help but press up against him closer, putting a hand on one of his and rolling your eyes playfully at his dramatics.

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

Addressing The Tinhatters: A Statement in Solidarity With @dtmsrpfcringe And Others

I've been active in this fandom for a little over a year, and in my time here I've kept my slate pretty clean. I try not to involve myself in drama and discourse, and when I see something I don't agree with online, most of the time I keep it to myself. I've been aware of the blogs I refer to in this post basically from the onset, but I've stayed quiet, partially to not come across as disrespecting others' opinions and preferences and partially to protect my peace and my own life as a creator. But what started as mostly harmless, if a bit unhinged and delusional, behavior, has turned on some fronts into unimaginable cruelty the likes of which I never imagined this fandom to be capable of. As someone who it seems people in this fandom have come to respect, I think it would be unfair and selfish for me to stay neutral any longer.

Fanfiction has been a genuinely transformative force in my life. It has helped me discover so much about my own relationships to love and desire, and I would never want to tell anyone that it is wrong for any ship to be that source of inspiration for them, including RPF. Nor do I think, as I've said, that it's inherently wrong to have speculative thoughts about David and Michael's sexualities. As someone who has been lucky enough to interact with David several times now, and probably will again, I choose not to do so myself in a public forum out of respect, but curiosity doesn't have to be invasive, and David and Michael being in loving partnerships with women certainly doesn't mean they can't be attracted to other genders too. There's nothing wrong with liking the idea of a relationship between David Tennant and Michael Sheen, or even, really, with believing they might have feelings for each other. If that's all you're doing, this post isn't about you. What I absolutely cannot excuse is the proliferation of hypocritical, nonsensical, and nasty rumors about the women in their lives.

Nothing Georgia Tennant or Anna Lundberg seems to do is ever good enough. Every expression of positivity is curated and phony, anything that could be perceived as negative vile and mean. I see these women attacked on a daily basis as partners, as mothers, as actresses. Georgia is simultaneously presenting a false ideal of a perfect, happy family for her own gains, while somehow at the same time being too irresponsible and incompetent to be a proper parent. Anna, a still young and up and coming actress herself, is expected to perform the ideal of an affectionate partner on social media, is perceived as unsupportive of Michael when she doesn't, when in reality she may simply be trying to make a name for herself in the industry without people solely associating her with the man she loves. Both of these women share in David and Michael's advocacy for marginalized communities, sometimes in different, more or less obvious ways. David and Michael are always brave and sincere, while Anna and Georgia's actions are always self serving and performative, though no evidence is ever given to indicate that the things they post or charities they support are any sort of cover or deflection. Nor are there ever any reasons given for their perceived lack of onscreen talent, other than that they're "boring" or don't have as many jobs as their husbands- never mind that both of them are in an extremely competitive industry and get perfectly respectable amounts of work, especially for mothers of young children. Worst of all, I've seen them accused of things as awful as child abuse and rape, all for the crime of simply being married to the wrong men. It's all so horribly gendered too, David and Michael often referred to as the "men" while Georgia and Anna are reduced to negative stereotypes of nagging, shallow gold diggers. As a fandom populated with so many queer people, many of whom, myself included, have found freedom from gender roles with Michael and David's characters' help, I thought we knew better.

I've been lucky enough to meet both David and Georgia now, and have witnessed firsthand the easy, joyful affection they have for each other when no one of consequence is watching, the way they giddily hold hands on the street and make each other laugh while tenderly looking into each other's eyes even and especially after sixteen years together. Georgia when I met her was incredibly kind, down to earth, and approachable, and my partner, who's met her several times more than I have, gushes about her constantly- how funny, authentic, and intelligent she is, and of course, how much she and David love each other, how they look out for each other and adore each other's flaws and quirks. David of course still gushes about Georgia every chance he gets in speeches and interviews, her strength and brilliance as well as her beauty, and Georgia, while maybe not always as effusive, shows her love for David in plenty of ways, the beautiful candid photos she takes of him, for instance. There's such a soft, painterly tenderness and fondness in them, for the man, not just the dazzling star everyone else gets to see. Her David, gentle, devoted, goofy, aging, melancholy, imperfectly perfect David. Where would we be without Georgia giving us these little glimpses of him? I suspect the same people who deride Georgia's social media presence as try-hard, cringeworthy, artificial, would feel a bit differently if one day they stopped coming.

I can't speak as clearly on behalf of Anna and Michael, but the accounts I've gotten of her and Michael's relationship from eyewitnesses have presented it as no less loving than David and Georgia's, albeit in slightly different ways. Even then, why should I have to? She doesn't owe me anything. I doubt anyone who's made the posts accusing Anna and Georgia of being nasty baby trappers has ever had children. There's no such thing as a perfect mother, and even one child is a massive task. It's normal to not be a shining ray of affection all the time, and Georgia I know more than makes up for it with her fierce love and support for her children in all of their endeavors. Georgia is also a diagnosed neurodivergent woman, and so many of the remarks I see directed at her are clearly discriminatory and often directed at women with her diagnoses. Everyone coos over how charming David is when he shows signs of being AuDHD, but the second his wife does too, she's careless and cold. And don't even get me started on when photos of Michael and David looking anything less than beatifically happy get interpreted as them being miserable due to their wives treating them so poorly. THEY'RE HUMAN BEINGS!!! NEUTRAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS EXIST!!! WOULD YOU BE A SPARKLING RAY OF SUNSHINE IF YOUR DISNEYLAND RIDE GOT STUCK!!!

I say all this now not even because I think I have any hope of stopping the people in question, but because one of the main fighters on the front of the opposition, @dtmsrpfcringe, has been both a wonderful online friend to me and dealt with even worse abuse than that which gets hurled at Anna and Georgia on the daily. When my blog was briefly overrun by TERFs in light of the Tennant/Badenoch/Sunak drama, Tori was the first person to stand up for me, and as she recieves more vitriol in one day than I've ever experienced in my entire life online, I think I've taken far too long to do the same for her. This woman has dealt with doxing threats, attacks on her character, and most horrific of all, wishes of death upon her and her baby. No one would blame her for stopping, but she has remained steadfast in her mission to call bs where she sees it, and she shouldn't have to do it alone. Tori, I think you are so brave, and I am proud to stand in solidarity with you against the misinformation, meanness, and misogyny that threaten to corrupt this fandom we call home.

Even after all we've been through over the past couple of months, I still believe the Good Omens fandom and David and Michael's individual fandoms to be places of kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. Which is why such cruel behavior (because there's no other word for it) is utterly disappointing and baffling to me. You should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. You're the exact kinds of people David and Michael speak out against on a weekly basis, and I guarantee that if you engage in the kinds of behavior I've highlighted here, they would be disgusted with you. Or maybe they'd simply pity you, because your lives are so empty that you've decided the only way to fill them is to sacrifice the reputations and peace of innocent women on the altar of a relationship that in all likelihood takes place solely in your own heads.

And if you read all this and find you still ship David and Michael, which even I do sometimes, well, there's always polyamory.

I'm sleepy! good night and kindly fuck off! - Lauren

[sjbattleangel]

Moon Studios' Thomas Mahler supports a hate movement

As someone who adores the Ori games, this is just awful in so many ways.

"Cancel culture" DOESN'T EXIST. What you're talking about is people demanding certain figures of power and influence to be held accountable for spewing bigoted hate speech or causing a toxic environment.

"Woke culture"? You mean a culture that acknowledges the existence of marginalized communities i.e people of colour, disabled people, queer, gender-non comforming people. Yet to you, that's somehow a terrible thing.

How dare you use a powerful poem dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust-the horrific tragedy of the history of humanity-to complain about your first-world persecution complex! To whine how sad it is that cishet white men like you own-*gasp*-slightly LESS of the world! Oh woah is me! You don't deserve to utter those words. Also, wanting more diversity, representation and equality in video games, game development and games journalism ISN'T THE SAME AS NAZISM! And don't me give that "The Nazis were socialists" bullcrap! THEY WERE FAR-RIGHT FASCISTS! You should know better. You're Austrian for crying out loud!

Having a women and minorities exist in video games and development isn't an "agenda". It's called KNOWING PEOPLE OTHER THEN CISHET WHITE GUYS EXIST. Also, "Hollywood" and "west coast developers" have nothing to do with this. Society is just changing, becoming more inclusive for the better and entertaining of all mediums are reflecting that. And that's great! Unless you have a problem with that.

Your friends were never "ridiculed" because they "didn't conform". Far from that tragic martyr rubbish you claim. They were rightfully reprimanded and fired for being bigoted jerks who didn't respect the humanity of marginalized people....just like you.

If you really believe the existence of minorities are "political", then I have nothing to say but SCREW. YOU.

Overall, there's just no way of putting it: Thomas Mahler is member and supporter of Gamergate.

Despite what they might tell you, Gamergate isn't and never was about "ethics" or "wanting fun apolitical entertainment". It is, has been and always will be a white supremacist hate movement (alongside Comicsgate and The Fandom Menace) dedicated to chasing women, LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC out of gaming and fandom. Its members and ringleaders are and have always been LITERAL NEO-NAZIS. Even when boycotting certain games over the supposed diversity consultants or the inclusion of minorities, they can barely hide their hatred.

Oh, and once again, THESE PEOPLE ARE LITERAL NEO-NAZIS:

(As evidenced by the "Embrace Tradition. Reject Modernity" white supremacist slogan*.)

Remember, if you still want to play his games, that's fine. I don't have the power to stop you. Just be warned that this developer stands with a hate movement.

*Hey, Nazi-turds, Japan and Korea aren't your Aryan utopias nor are their people your precious Aryan supergods!

[decolonize-the-everything]

as far as i know, the transandrophobia post you're talking about is the one by ftmtf who pretty regularly reblogs from spacelazarwolf and genderkoolaid, who are both zionists who deny and downplay the genocide in gaza (on top of being open transmisogynists who dabble in claiming trans women have male privilege). i'm not going to tell you what to think about the theory of transandrophobia but i personally question the motives when a lot of loudest proponents of it either are or associate with these types of people.

The post I'm talking about was made by myself. Someone made a vaguepost in response to it suggesting idk what I'm talking about.

That context aside,

I'm none of those things, advocate for none of those things, and my followers know that so what makes their character a reason to question my character, anyway?

.

When did y'all start letting racists and genocide apologists speak for anyone? Radfems came and nobody said feminism had to stop existing right?

I think it's entirely possible to recognize good faith, genuine critiques and analysis of how white supremacy affects men (which is the perspective of oppression that my post focused on) and how that intersects with other systems of oppression.

Likewise, the same way you've learned to spot radfem/terf bs I think it's also possible to recognize when that's being done in bad faith like when radfem-type ppl (like spacelazarwolf) do it.

Another response I get is people assuming that acknowledging someone else's oppression would somehow be lessening their own? and I dont see how that's my problem to unpack after we spent the last 5 years explaining to white people that privilege doesn't mean you can't also be poor or queer. We've already read this chapter as a society, I thought?

Imagine how fucking sad it would be if some totally normal person logged on Tumblr, saw the feminist tag full of transphobia, assumed all feminism was like that, and decided "I'm never gonna be a feminist, they're all bigots and also anyone who calls themselves that is fucking wrong and just doesn't know it."

🙃🙃🙃

That is what's happening to non-femme trans people except it's happening before the concept of our oppression under patriarchy/white supremacy has actually even really been discussed which is fucked up cuz like ...how are you gonna let that pathetic, bigoted explanation of oppression be representative of all trans-masc/non-binary people and actively discourage other people from trying to figuring it out too....and it's not bigoted? Like how.

Esp when my post was analyzed it through the lens of white supremacy. So it was also specifically about marginalized mascs and nonbinary people. Like how is wanting to discuss the way your gender impacts, compounds, and informs your experiences and other forms of oppression bigoted just because you're not a woman or femme lol?

I thought we wanted men to do that specifically. What happened to that?

Ofc trans femmes don't have male privilege!!! I think if your concepts of oppression undermine someone else's then your concepts are shit and you should read more. You shouldnt have to misgender, degrade, or dehumanize anyone else to identify yourself or name your oppression. My posts didn't do that, which is why the reactionary response from especially leftist Tumblr has been pretty disappointing tbh.

I've been fleshing my own idea of it out on my blog and that's been aggressively reacted to every single time I've answered questions about it 💀

And it's always bad faith nonsense, like "you just hate trans women" which is just a factually untrue reactionary statement. Like that's not even a critique cuz I know you didn't check the trans tag on my blog, that's nothing to me. Or it's "you don't know what intersectionality is" when I've made sure to read Kimberlé Crenshaw's source material and share it. When I've made sure to even read recent statements she's made commenting on how it's being used and weaponized in modern times.

Or it's seemingly good faith comments like yours anon "well only bigots have ever talked about it..."

Which is just another reactionary comment that doesn't even bother valuable critique.

How would you feel if I said "radfems are the loudest proponents of women rights so think about that before you start associating yourself with them."

sounds like bs misogyny doesn't it?

And maybe your response would be that I should just widen my circle and stop listening to radfems maybe. Maybe you'd tell me that Bigot feminism is not the only feminism out there and it would be on me to educate myself about that in good faith if I actually care about women :)

And you'd be right.

And I'm saying that road should go both ways.

When I'm having that conversation in good faith on my blog, it shouldnt be difficult for a bunch of people calling themselves progressive thinkers to hear me out in good faith instead of assuming I'm a bigot who doesn't know trans women are oppressed.

Like yeah it's shitty and systemic proof that misogyny is alive and real that the only people who talked about transandrophobia thus far are Like That.

However, I do not think it's proof that nonbinary, transmasc, and other marginalized men need to be gatekept from having the vocabulary to describe their unique experiences. We don't use homophobic straight women as proof that feminism shouldn't exist, right? I'm using the same logic. If the shittiest woman on earth deserves to destroy the patriarchy then why doesn't the shittiest nonbinary man you know have the same right? 💀

And going back to the vocabulary thing: Vocabulary, language, and literacy are necessary to dismantle anything and everything you can think of.

I genuinely don't get all the pushback beyond it just being well-intentioned & reactionary at the same time tbh

[batsplat]

your top 5 fave motogp races? or alternatively what races you’d show to a newbie to get them into the sport or smth

one of those things where it's painful to pick five, but at least this ask gives me the chance to hedge my bets and pick five different races for each category (most of these races will be featured in the recs lists; 27, 4+93, 46)

laguna '08: works wonders to bring both that season and the rivalry alive. delightfully visceral and vicious, there's few duels that tell you quite so much about both participants. I have lap-by-lap notes for this race. I have points tables assessing how much of a turning point it was in the season. I have read the bit in casey's autobiography about this race about a million times. how their expectations going in influenced the dynamics of the race, how the slower man won the race, what valentino was attempting to do to casey, casey's response... I could quite literally talk about this race forever

phillip island '17: idk I don't think this is objectively 'better' than the other two infamous dogfights of that era (pi '15; assen '18), but sometimes you just notice which one has the most rewatch value for you... I really like races where risk/reward calculation is a big deal, where at least one of the riders is having to actively judge how much they're willing to do to win... with the hard style of racing in this one, those calculations feel particularly present. phillip island is in such a perfect calendar spot for generating maximum drama

misano '17: maybe the quirkiest pick. marc is too good and too successful for me to ever really have been 'stressed' watching him in his prime, but bloody hell did he run me close here. something so satisfying about being so adept in wet/mixed conditions... love the spite element of this race, love the risk/reward calculations, how marc just needs to go for it in the very final lap, his dogged determination... a race where he doesn't have a massive margin over the field but just wants it so so badly that he goes for it. he's making a statement, bouncing back from a low point in the season, super compelling stuff

mugello '04: just love races that are kinda a mess! lots of twists and turns... bunch of riders fighting it out, the sete duel, the rain interruption, bunch of riders fighting it out but now on a way more slippery track... I don't know, there's just something charming about a race that has a bit of everything! of course it's also part of my beloved 2004 season, from which I could have easily included five different races (and if you're ever looking for a full season to watch, 2004 2006 and 2017 are the holy trinity - mix of title fight drama and banger races)

okay listen I'm gonna cheat here because I wrote out the word 'catalunya' and then had a crisis staring at this post. '07 I need to include because it's my favourite casey win and it's how he establishes himself as an all-round threat and is so important in the overall context of the valentino rivalry, but '09 is like... right up there with laguna as season lynchpin races and also somehow jorge has been left out from these picks... I love big momentum-switchers I love races that have so much meaning in the context of a rivalry AND season. I also love how they're connected! that valentino did the same move on casey (just not on the final lap) and had basically already rehearsed his coup de grâce two years in advance, before visualising it the week before the race... casey joking about it in the catalunya '09 presser, jorge knowing he kinda should have seen it coming, casey kinda ragging on jorge for not having seen it coming... idk!! I like this little legacy they built there together

for newbies

phillip island '23: you need to include something a little more current to give new fans a reason to watch now... phillip island races are reliably great - this one introduces you to two of the major protagonists of the current game in a way that kind tells you a lot about both of them, gives you a demonstration of one of the best types of races (the multi-rider dogfight), and it also is the most brute force way imaginable of explaining how tyres work in motogp. pedagogically pleasing! it's the kind of race new viewers will be able to enjoy in the moment, but have a lot of questions about afterwards - the sweet spot

assen '15: easily makes my top five rewatched races too, but I put it under the newbie header because again... tells you a lot! it's very likely this hypothetical newbie will have at least have SOME knowledge of who the two protagonists are and know they've fallen out, though I suppose it'd be funny to go in completely blind. obviously a great duel and a very nice introduction to the two big names plus their respective riding styles... what you really want is some late drama and a controversial finish that you can immediately have a hot take about

donington '05: we need a full wet race, not just mixed but wet wet... this one's got one hell of an attrition rate but also proper tussling between the different riders, rather than everyone just riding out on their own. it really gives you a feeling for how these kinds of races work... lot of riders wobbling around, saving near-falls, trying to get a sense of how much they can risk, riding behind each other to have somebody else test out their conditions... plus, the valentino performance kinda slaps

austria '17: got to be a marc/dovi duel in here, and this one has the clear edge not as much for the race itself but a) the novelty at the time, and b) the significance in the title fight. in dovi you've got somebody who is emerging as a threat and is providing a new flavour of challenge.... there's also that fun tension between how marc logically very much should just be happy to be there as a result of what a ducati circuit it is and he's simply supposed to be limiting the points damage... but he also really, really wants to win... actually either this or motegi 2017, almost want to change my pick. one of those two!!

brno '03: sneaking in an old race as a gateway drug, and I think this one is quite 'accessible' to the uninitiated. I considered other ones like phillip island '01 (valentino's first premier class matchpoint race, classic dogfight) or welkom '04 (first yamaha race and one of the duels) - but I think you don't need much context to get absorbed in this one. the race commentary already gives you the most important information... valentino's struggles that season, the criticisms he was facing from the italian press, how badly he wanted to win, the haircut, all of it... and then you get to see the post-race prisoner's celebrations, a flavour of the proper classic camp dramatics

slightly silly number of honourable mentions, each of which I was extremely tempted to include: motegi '10, jerez 2005, misano '19, laguna '11, jerez '10, assen '04, catalunya '04 '05 '16, mugello '05 '06, sachsenring '06, assen '04, phillip island '04, le mans 2005, qatar 2005, suzuka '01, thailand '19, austria '19, qatar '18, silverstone '19, sachsenring '10, qatar '15, mugello '16, sepang '10, assen '07 (and ones I did already kinda mention above: phillip island '15, assen '18, phillip island '01, welkom '04, motegi '17)

[creature-wizard]

how is she (Lilith) closed when she exists in Swedish folklore with a different name (Her name is Lucia but it developed into the Saint Lucia tradition to be exact but in northern Swedish folklore she has a darker past where she was adams first wife and her story is very similar to Jewish Lilith).

Edit to add: It's extremely likely that this story about Lucia being the first wife of Adam is more of a modern Internet tale than an old Swedish folktale. I can find no reputable sources to back it up, and people who have familiarity with Saint Lucia/Lussi have informed me that they've heard nothing of this kind, either. That said, my point that similarity between figures does not justify appropriation still stands.

The uniqueness of figures has nothing to do with whether they're open or closed. Your argument is like saying, "well how can this storm god from an African traditional religion be closed when Thor exists?"

The ATR god is closed because the people who whom that tradition belongs said so. If you want to worship a storm god, Thor is right there. Likewise, you are free to work with this folkloric version of Saint Lucy.

Lilith isn't closed because she's supposedly unique. That never had anything to do with it. In fact, "oh but this open figure and that closed figure are basically the same though, that means I'm entitled to the one you're claiming is closed" is the rhetoric of spiritual colonialism, used to justify the misrepresentation and commodification of spiritual figures from marginalized groups, to that group's detriment.

Now, not every Jew agrees that Lilith is closed, because Jews aren't a monolith. But I have seen no shortage of Jews arguing for Lilith as a closed figure, and I find their arguments pretty damn compelling

So, Christians have spent centuries digging into Jewish traditions to find something they could weaponize against Jews; EG, getting into Kabbalah to try and find places they could project Jesus so they could try and convince Jews to convert to Christianity. Something very similar is absolutely happening with the gentile Lilith worshipers. There's a strong tendency toward antisemitic conspiracy theory among them; EG, believing that patriarchy was a Jewish conspiracy that was later expressed through Christianity.

These people often claim that Lilith was this ancient mother goddess who was demonized by the Jews. They try to claim that these old mentions of lilitu are somehow evidence. In reality, ancient cultures in the Near East worshiped a number of mother goddesses (EG, Ninhursag), and none of whom were Lilith.

Many deities did get demonized at some point (EG, Astarte became Ashtoreth, and Baal became Bael), but this had nothing to do with a patriarchal conspiracy; rather it was a generalized demonization of rival gods. And Lilith was not among them, because Lilith was never a goddess.

In fact, I have yet to see a single gentile Lilith worshiper who isn't deep into conspiracy theories and doesn't quote pseudohistory of some kind. Not a single one. So yeah, I will continue taking the side of the Jews who say that Lilith should be closed, because I've seen the bullshit gentiles are pulling with her.

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 767: Rivalry between warlords

Pag 2

1: Hahaha!

2: Two people are coming up!!

Who is it?

What a force!

Uh... those jerseys... that orange hair....!!

3: It's Sohoku's second year, Kaburagi!!

Hahaha, sorry for the wait! A hero always arrives late!!

Pag 3 / 4

They gathered from all over the country.... to decide the strongest in Japan!!

Pag 5

1: Two people from Sohoku caught up to the lead!!

Uh... Sohoku

Sohoku... and it's two of them!!

2: Senpai, is he strong?

That's the guy who last year competed until the end against Hakogaku for the sprint battle of the first day!!

3: I'll say it again

4: Hahaha, sorry for the wait! A hero always arrives late!!

He really said it a second time!! Does he like that sentence so much!?

Pag 6

1: “Join the lead” completed, Issa!!

Hahaha just as we planned, Danchiku!!

Pag 7

6: Senpai, the fact that they're here

7: means that are chances of winning are lower, right? It means big troubles for us, who used our legs, jumped ahead and got here with so much efforts, right!?

8: That's not a “hero” at all!! Rather, it's the opposite!!

Pag 8

1: Come forward if you wanna be defeated

2: Such an overwhelming confidence!! What arrogant attitude!! Ug!! Ah!?

3: But, somehow, he's a little cool!!

4: Wait wait wait

Wait!!

Pag 9

1: Small, small

You're small!! Sohoku!!

Ah?

2: A man's strength is “thickness”!!

3: Oh

4: Just now there was a guy from Nagoya who also didn't know

Just

5: Tch

6: I wanna make you understand by strength!!

Pag 10

1: Look at this thick neck!!

2: This thick waist!!

3: If you ride a first-class road-bike you should understand too!!

A thick waist is the trunk of your body!! And the trunk is the most important muscle to turn your legs and move your bike forward!!

4: And then, the “neck”!!

5: The heaviest part of the body.... the head accounts for one-fifth of the body

And it supports it from the side!! In other sports, the head is supported by the spine, only in cycling it's supported only by your neck's muscles!! That thickness stabilizes all your movements!!

6: These two things are “thick”!!

Do you understand what it means?

7: Kaburagi-kun!!

Pag 11

1: Let's race!!

2: No need for words, let's speak with our legs!!

How 'bout until the second roadsign!?

4: No problem

5: I'll entertain you!!

6: You'll recognize the “thickness”!!

7: The race between those two is starting!!

Pag 12

1: The thickest volcano in Japan is Sakurajima!!

Pag 13

1: The thickest radish in Japan is the Sakurajima radish

2: Kagoshima's Oosumi jumped ahead!!

Oosumi-kun!! His killer phrase came out!!

3: An explosive acceleration, just like a volcano's eruption!!

4: And his trunk.... his thick trunk

5: is moving forward like a log in a flowing in rapids!!

Pag 14

1: They call me “the raging log of Kagoshima, Oosumi”!!

My way of running is crushing everything!!

2: On the other hand, Sohoku's Issa got a late start!!

3: And his pedaling doesn't even have any explosive power

4: Is his condition not good!?

Pag 15

1: He's pedaling so... unconcerned...

He's just pedaling.... huh!?

4: and yet....

6: He caught up to Oosumi!!

7: H-

Pag 16

1: How!!

2: Your power is ���thick” but your power loss is “thick” too

The really fast pedaling... haven't you heard it?

3: Is the one that appears weak at first glance

5: Is that the second roadsign?

6: Since you got here

7: I'll show you

8: He raised his hips from the saddle

Pag 17

1: Hoooooooo

2: My explosive acceleration!!

3: Ra!!

5: Ngh....!!

He's getting smaller in the blink of an eye.....

Pag 19

2: He accelerated with a popping sound!?

3: Hahaha, so how was it?

4: My Special Strong acceleration, that's had another power up since last year?

5: Sohoku defeated Kagoshima!!

The raging log!! And with a huge margin, even!!

Oosumi-kun!!

So strong... is he really a hero?

Pag 20

1: As expected by Issa

You sure show your strength during a “race”

2: Your high power, judgment, and wild instincts are first class

3: With this performance, you erased

4: this leading group's will to fight!!

5: There's 6km left until the...

6: sprint line!!

Pag 21

1: (Kaburagi and Danciku

Leading group)

We've passed a group of some people while coming here, but as expected there's no one else....

2: who will catch u.....

6: ….. Sohoku

Somehow

8: This pressure!!

Pag 22

1: Hakogaku's Doubashi!!

Pag 23

1: Yo!! It's been a while, orange!!

2: I came here to shoot you down!!

3: Thick!! Who is this thick guy!!

4: Ha.... Hakone Acedmy in a moment like this!!

5: What's with this pressure

6: He caught up? Until here and on his own!!

7: Ugh!!

What do we do, Issa!!

Pag 24

1: I won't forgive you...

I'll never forgive you....!!

3: You've arrived after me and so now I look like less of a hero!!

[gaylordscooter]

Log of the Multiverse: Fresh

I've done some research lately on that parasite. In order to help someone.

Y'see Fresh is an interesting outcode to say the least. No one knows what his original universe was like. No one knows where he came from.

Not even Ink! Or at least, every time I ask him he conveniently forgets the answer even though he swears he knew a second ago.

Well, I can't blame him for having a faulty memory when mine's pretty shabby too.

But I digress.

He also kidnaps people. that's probably the first thing i should state.

So yeah, someone was kidnapped. Specifically Cross's best bud, Epic. A shame too, he was just rescued from the cusp of death in his universe. He didn't get to spend much time at the hub (see entry on Cross and XChara) before he went missing.

We don't know HOW Fresh weaseled his way into the hub, the code of the universe is set up in a way that repels him like a magnet of the same charge as him. The only ones that could've tampered with that code would be Cross himself (unlikely), Error (who doesn't even know where or what the hub is), and...

i'm getting off topic again!

So however he got in, he did, and then he found Epic and none of us had the time to warn him about who Fresh is and what he does. I'd assume they hit it off pretty well. They'd probably be great friends if it wasn't for the fact Fresh's entire personality is fabricated to lure people in.

As for Where monsters (mainly of the skeleton kind. mainly of the sans kind.) end up after Fresh nabs them, well i shouldn't leave you in suspense should i?

yeah that would be mean.

who would do that in their own log? i mean, i'm the only one reading it.

so really i'm not keeping anyone in suspense because i already know.

[there is a stupidly wide margin here]

yup.

That was stupid.

Anyway, he takes you to some warehouse in the antivoid where he holds this endless rave. How do I know this? Ink told me during one of his fights with Error they somehow strayed so far away from Error's place in the antivoid that they found Fresh's territory. Ink said the fight ended there because the sight and sound of it made Error crash. Ink took a peak through one of the windows and saw the place PACKED with sanses all of them wearing shades just like Fresh. The music and strobe lights could be heard from miles away you'd think it was a GREAT party.

you'd probably notice all the dust after it's too late.

Wowzers so dramatic.

I Havent Said Or Written That Word in Sooo Long

that almost felt weird to write. whatever

So anyway, recap. no one knows where fresh comes from, he kidnaps people and takes them to an endless rave where you dance until you literally drop and epic is currently at said rave.

yeahhhh.

AS FOR MY RESEARCH! "no one knows where fresh comes from" TOSS THAT OUT THE WINDOW. ME!! I KNOW!!

He's actually

from a completely generic undertale universe

You might think "what? that doesn't sound right."

Which Yeah I Guess So If You're A Party Pooper Sure. Technically He's From An Alternate Timeline. Asshole.

"ok so how did a sans become that 90's freak?" Wrong. Incorrect. The sans of that universe is fine and dandy we had coffee together last week (true) (real).

Actually Fresh is

DRAMATIC PAUSE!

I'm killing you aren't i? absolutely annoying you?

you probably already know actually. SIGH

He's a memoryhead. I know! It threw me for a loop too. And it only made things MORE confusing considering. well no one knows the deal with memoryheads. not even alphyses.

They're. amalgamates? but. What monsters did they come from? They didn't come from Any recognizable monsters.

Now as for what's up with the flowers Fresh uses—Which I Totally Forgot To Mention In This Entry. ehhh whatever you probably already read that one. .. Did i include the flowers part. i forgot how much i explained there i was kinda occupied watering my flower. s. my flowers my potted flowers that i Keep In my room. and water with Water and not any other liquid.

the flowers are different from fresh's flowers unrelated. unrelated flowers to any s. keletons

I'm still trying to figure out what is up with the flowers but my guessFOR NO REASON IN PARTICULAR is that said memoryhead managed to mmmmmerge?? melt? how do i phrase this. merge. with a flowey. maybe. potentially

i mean ive never seen a rafflesia flowey ever but hey the multiverse is huge. (not endless though. ink's told me he's seen the edge of the multiverse he looked very perturbed at the revelation)

not that ive seen many floweys.

AUDIBLE COUGH WRITTEN ON PAPER

Man i totally just dropped the "fresh is a memoryhead from an undertale alternate timeline actually" bomb on you and didn't let you sit with it huh.

I'm sorry to say that's as far as my research got. He's a memoryhead. Potentially merged with some sort of flowey. So what now?

well i have a lot of questions. like you do probably

How did the memoryhead escape their universe in the first place? Who in that amalgamate is in control? the flowey? the memoryhead (what monsters are in the memoryhead anyway?) how did that happen? Why the hell does it pretend to be from the 90's.

why does it need so many hosts. what IS the main host's body and why is it so tall? SIX feet really? compensating much? what the hell would an amalgamate need to compensate for. nevermind.

Hang on pause. the song that just came on goes hard i need to save it to my playlist.

...

Yes?? I listen to music while writing these sometimes? Duh? Get off my back?

"you're being sassier than normal" am i? (am i.) well maybe i just learned something

about myself. learned more about myself

I might loop this song actually. it's that good. do you do that? do you find a song that's so good you just loop it and wrench every note out of it until it sounds awful to you?

[nothorses]

With the whole voting shit going on, I've felt incredibly conflicted about voting. But recently, the opinion I've landed on is similar to Kelly Hayes. I am roughly paraphrasing here, but she said that it's incredibly insensitive to ask Arab Americans and Palestinians, people who have outright LOST their family members due to the US's unrestricted military aid to israel and the genocide, to vote. That makes sense to me. I absolutely agree with that, and I don't think it makes sense to yell at these people to vote. BUT, Kelly then goes on to say that the argument that if you're voting, you're got blood on your hands, is just wrong. Because living in America, benefiting from the imperialistic violence, we always had blood on our hands, and no one's breaking solidarity with marginalized folks simply by voting. You break solidarity when you justify your politicians' horrible actions, such as police brutality, prison industrial complex, etc. But in this case, when someone acknowledges these politicans aren't gonna get the real important shit done, only direct action works, and you're voting to choose your opponent--I don't think that's breaking solidarity. Or throwing people under the bus. The truth is even if every leftist didn't engage with electoral politics at all, and spent it on mutual aid, community defense, these things--there would still be a president until we somehow destroy settler nation America. And that president will destroy public infrastructure and attack marginalized folks a lot quicker if he isn't a democrat, because the Republicans are literally just--fascist party.

I dislike people whose only engagement with politics is to vote shame. But I also think it's just a wrong take to act like people who vote, who aren't vote shaming, who do think it's harm reduction, are all idiotic liberals. As we try to mobilize against imperialism, it's crucial to try to pick our enemies when we can. I understand the fact our wealth, the fact we have these healthcare systems, this public ifnrastructure and government assistance even if it's nowhere near enough--it comes from blood of the Global South. And there is a real problem with liberals who care about these elections only to maintain their quality of life, don't care about imperialism and global oppression at all. These people exist, and if we do start dismantling imperialism ina meaningful fashion, USA quality of life will drop. But people voting Democrat because they don't want the Affordable Care Act dismantled, want to keep their food stamps, their schools funded--they're not inherently selfish and breaking solidarity with third world folks. There's nuance here, a lot of nuance. Which is why I like Kelly saying we can't let electoralism destroy our relationships., because we are going to need to build, build, build if we are going to survive. I'm going to vote because ultimately it won't take me much time, but I also won't judge the people who refuse to, choosing to invest their efforts in direct action.

I also think the people who say voting doesn't do anything...they also ignore the nuance. I get it. I get the frustration. But as I read various perspectives, I'm starting to realize the treachery of black-and-white thing. Before there's a revolution, it's more likely we are going to build new things out of the old system, incrementalism, before we make any foundational leap. Again, this shit has nuance.

Yeah, I think this resonates a lot for me. And I'm not really here to "vote shame" either! I think I do have a similar opinion on it to FD Signifier, though, who says he thinks of voting like washing your hands.

You can choose not to, it's not the end of the world. But like. Why? Who is this helping? I mean maybe it's not my business, maybe you have a good reason, whatever. It's just one of those things that, y'know, especially if it takes you 5 minutes to mail a ballot in... it's just good hygiene.

And I think a lot of people say, "put your energy towards these other things instead!" without any intent to actually do so, and without any follow through themselves. And do you really need to not vote in order to do those things? Like is voting the thing preventing you from Doing The Revolution? For real?

At the end of the day, I'm not going to shame anyone for not voting. I talk about it because I think some people are misguided about how all this works, and I think some of the opinions people put out there just, like, suck. But it's ultimately not up to me. 🤷‍♂️

[headspace-hotel]

3 questions:

1. How do you carry the heavy burden of having so many correct beliefs plus the rare combination of motivation and the right approach to making the world a better place? 2. Does your back hurt?

3. What do you think about David Pearce's utopian idea that a sufficiently technologically advanced future society could and should one day abolish (or at least minimize) suffering, partly by redesigning the biosphere and its inhabitants to be kinder and gentler to each other? IMO that could involve bioengineering predation out of existence.

Sorry if I already asked you about this. You seem very smart and seem to know a lot about ecology so I want to know your thoughts

1. Half the work is fighting very hard against starting to believe this very thing (that I have correcter beliefs than many other people). I hope my posts inspire y'all to read things that are not posts.

2. Not really.

3. The term you're looking for is "life on Earth goes extinct."

But, okay, I've seen this sentiment before, and it is—not that you are, just that the idea is— a naive and arrogant approach to ethics in nature

I don't think it's wrong to change the biosphere. That's what life DOES. It evolves.

But "ending suffering" is an impossible goal because we don't, and in some ways can't, understand suffering scientifically. Suffering is an internal state that is defined only by the perceiver's experience of it. We still do not know the ins and outs of how physical pain works in humans, let alone spicy, obscure emotions like Existential Angst.

People who are concerned with the problem of suffering in nature focus on predation and pain in the animal kingdom—understandable if you have thought about it for under five minutes, but hopelessly incomplete and arbitrary if you consider that a creature's ability to feel and perceive is not determined by how humanlike it is.

There is no reason to think a plant or a mushroom is less capable of "suffering" than a lobster is. Plants and fungi are different; they are not simpler or less advanced or less alive than animals.

The corollary to this is that being marginally more humanlike doesn't mean that a creature "suffers" in the way a human does. When you think about it, living things can perceive "negative" stimuli because the ability to do so helped their ancestors survive. A solitary creature, for instance, wouldn't experience loneliness because being with others of its species isn't really necessary or beneficial for it. It's very likely that a creature that can't change its behavior to accommodate for or help heal an injury, can't experience continuous pain like we can. Does that mean they don't "suffer" as severely as we do? I'm not sure. It's impossible to say. I'm sure we all experience the world profoundly—I'm sure the perception of light by a bryozoan colony and the subsequent growth toward the light and feasting on algae "feels" as potent and spiritual as any of my complicated chordate emotions.

Long story short, stimuli like pain were adapted as responses that help a creature survive by avoiding things that are injurious to its survival. To eliminate suffering, you'd have to invent creatures that don't want to be alive, which would die out and be replaced by creatures that do.

Inventing creatures that don't want to be alive somehow sounds way more fucked up than anything that already exists.

But, hi, we are social creatures. Our survival instincts are overwhelmingly oriented toward seeking safety with other humans. PTSD is a disorder of social misplacement; it develops when the communities we live in don't properly acknowledge and care for our hurt after a distressing experience. We evolved to be able to communicate pain and distress to other humans, which means being aware of our own suffering, and that others can suffer, which explains why we are having this conversation, because wanting to relieve other creatures' suffering is a quality of our species.

I get tags on my posts sometimes referencing how nature is a brutal suffering machine—often when I'm talking about plant cognition and awareness—and it's troubling because that's not the takeaway I want people to have at all.

Because first of all, a healthy ecosystem working "as intended" does a lot to minimize suffering. People see predation as this violent and brutal thing, but for a deer, death by festering injury or starvation or parasite overload related to overcrowding or even old age is a lot more nasty and painful.

A biosphere without predators is unavoidably worse. The buffer on prey populations that predators provide creates optimal conditions for prey, because otherwise, the animals just reproduce to the point where the population can't increase any more because the animals are too sick/starving.

Predation ensures a deer with a horribly mangled broken leg will get picked off instead of limping around for months in pain (something i actually witnessed!). It's not evil. It just is.

If you really wanted to eliminate suffering, you would have to eliminate being alive, and to be completely honest, that is probably not possible. We could not render the Earth completely empty of even single celled organisms if we dumped every toxic chemical into the atmosphere and bombed ourselves with every nuclear weapon. We would still have tough bastards like Deinococcus radiodurans around, and those guys would probably eventually evolve into organisms with the capability to experience pain all over again.

Abiogenesis may be a bitch but life, once it exists, is a Pandora's box that can't be unopened. The first thing to be alive also invented death, and there's no way around that. The monkey-typewriter-room of molecules that let you understand that you exist are going to write out "WOW, THIS FUCKING SUCKS" every once in a while.

When you think about it, the ecosystem as it naturally evolved probably is one of the most low-suffering possible ecosystems, assuming that things that can be considered "suffering" evolved as survival mechanisms, and unnecessary mechanisms for suffering would be eliminated over time due to the detriment they are to survival.

Living things develop survival mechanisms, and this means the ability to distinguish good and bad stimuli. Can't get around that.

Even with the existence of predation and parasitism as important modes of survival, such overtly ""antagonistic"" relationships in nature aren't even dominant. A staggering portion of the biosphere is engaged by necessity in mutualism—most plants form mycorrhizal symbioses and flowering plants are also symbiotically joined to pollinators, not to mention that plants need each other to thrive.

You can view this positively (plants have friends!) or negatively (plants can get lonely...)

[wuahae]

✶ seventeen, after it all ends.

post-breakup hcs, ft. hip hop unit

-> performance | vocal

the phone rings at 2AM, and seungcheol immediately knows it's you. it's becoming all too familiar, he laments distantly—the neon numbers blinking on his bedside, the three rings he lets pass before inevitably answering on the fourth, the voice that greets him on the other end of the line. ("hi, cheol," you utter quietly, and it's like he's back at the starting line, still gathering up the courage to tear himself away.) he wants to blame his lack of resilience on the hour, the repeatedly promised 'one last time,' but seungcheol knows he ends up here every single time because he would rather you cry with him than alone. he's not anything to you anymore, seungcheol tells himself, but he can taste the lie before it even forms on his tongue, the way it tangles itself between late night calls and quiet words and—("i'm sorry, cheol," the nickname feels like a mottled bruise, a confession tumbling soon after. like defeat in the admittance. "i didn't know who else to call." you always sound so hurt when seungcheol hears you speak; he wonders if it's his fault.) seungcheol knows better than anyone that he can't keep doing this with you, that it's unhealthy and you both need to move on, that he can't keep letting things linger as a pitiful attempt to ease his guilt, but old habits die hard; seungcheol wonders if this is just becoming another.

wonwoo finds an old note you'd written a week after, tucked away into a borrowed book you'd forgotten to take back. it wasn't anything special or profound, just a little bookmark put for a future-him to find, "this made me think of you," scrawled on the sides and in the margins and page numbers for passages you thought he would like. the annotations speak in a language all by themselves, care crafted into each word, each stroke, and somehow, he sees you in it all. (how had you put it again? like it was memories permanently inked into paper, a version of yourself you could always come back to.) they say that to love is to lose, and that grief is just love with no place left to go, but wonwoo can't seem to care about the accuracy of poetry and prose when he is still mourning of someone lost to him forever. ("don't be a stranger," you had reminded him softly, the day you left, but you both knew it was all wishful thinking than an actual promise. in the end it would all be the same— a forced blank slate, a version of himself grappling with a soul still shaped like you.) wonwoo supposes it's a little too late to feign ignorance and give the book back to you, lovenote tucked back in; it would be cruel for him to insist on making you revisit a past scratched and scribbled and thrown away. he runs a hand over the paper, ink under skin, heart in throat, and closes the book. even if he came back it would never, ever be the same.

mingyu can't hear anything over the roaring of his ears. he can't remember much from the night either, something about his lost phone he probably left on the uber here, fumbling favors from a nearby stranger, something else distant and fuzzy that lead him to sitting on the curb outside waiting for—"mingyu." (oh. it's you.) your voice strikes clean through the fog, but mingyu only manages to utter your name; the muffled bass playing from inside the bar still thrums in his bones. you sigh quietly, taking a seat next to him, arms touching. (it burns, the forgotten familiarity. "let's get you home, okay?" you nudge gently, and mingyu has to remember that home doesn't mean the same thing to you anymore.) it isn't until you're parked outside of his apartment that you ask the burning question ("why did you call me?") and he answers truthfully ("your number was the only one i remembered."). your eyes flicker with the confession and he almost wants to take it back, his secrets displayed raw, but hidden truths already start to spill out of mingyu's mouth, things he's been wanting to say for months. (i'm sorry," he ends up saying, eventually. "i really loved you, you know?" he thinks he still does.) some would call it drunken courage but mingyu thinks it's just his sober cowardice instead. maybe if he had said it when it mattered, 'home' would still be you.

it's been two months, and vernon still hasn't figured out how to break the news. he practices it in his head more times than he can count, drafting and erasing and rewriting the right words to tell his family that you and him are over, but it all falls flat the minute he tries to get them past his lips. some days he gets close, the first few words spoken before his mom interrupts asking how you are; other days, the words die before they even have the chance to form, all amounting to a wooden tongue, a puff of empty air. his sister knows, vernon thinks, the way she shoots him a look half-pity half-judgement every time he tries to bring it up. maybe you were the one to tell her, or maybe she had just figured it out all by herself, but it comforts him, in a strange way—like he's not alone in his unintentionally kept secret. ("dad wants to know if you're able to come over for christmas," vernon tells you over the phone, and the line goes silent. vernon winces, already anticipating what comes after. "have you..." you start carefully, "...not told them?") a part of him wants to say that it's all a matter of luck and timing, that he just hasn't found the right time and he'll do it soon, he promises, but the rest of him knows that it's all just excuses. (vernon is scared, he thinks, still trying to stall the sinking feeling that there truly is no coming back after he tells his family. it feels more like admitting it to himself, carving it into stone, cementing it into the ground where his love lies buried.) vernon says that his biggest problem is figuring out how to break the news, but really, it's figuring out how to let you go.

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

and you don't get to speak over black or even other racialized women to defend precious wittle men of color against us calling out misogyny or pretend that our experiences with violent men of our own communities aren't also systemic patriarchy. when WOMEN are speaking about our experiences you all loser notlikeothergirlsimtrans weirdos want to finally care about the double standards racialized people face... yes whites will always asume PoC are somehow irrational or violent (not u tho, mrs mammy) and yet, male individuals using physical strength and even raised voices against women IS something that affects us too, because believe it or not racist, we are women! If a white woman is accusing a racialized man thats when MAYBE we can take a deeper look. but u dont get to pretend women of color aren't harmed by male violence in all the ways its normalized. fuck off. bioessentialism would be thinking unfeminine interests make someone a man. no wonder ur liberal ass thinks hollywood is how u change the world

ABFHSJDHDHJD 😂🤣🤣🤣

TERFs are so bad at clocking transmascs they'll direct transphobia at a cis male.

"You don't get to speak over black or other racialized women" this is hilarious because every time someone calls out white feminists for weaponizing their whiteness y'all come jumping out to defend them. Terribly sorry your opinion is as useless as manosphere misogynists.

"If a white woman is accusing a racialized man that's when MAYBE we can take a deeper look" LMAO! When!? Y'all always side with the white woman! It's all inter racial solidarity until someone disagrees with you. Then you're perfectly willing to throw women of color from other communities under the bus.

"When women are speaking" Oh I'm so sorry Karen. I didn't realize talking about MY experiences and MY trauma made you uncomfortable!

"No wonder your liberal ass thinks Hollywood is how you change the world" This is so ridiculous. I suppose you think being a cyber bully and harassing men of color on the internet is a better way to change the world?

I'm so sorry you're so powerless to harm the men who hurt you in real life you resort to being a coward online.

But since you care so much about women of colors' voices:

Excerpts from bell hooks Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center.

I suggest reading it. She has plenty of criticism for men of all stripes in there too. Because unlike some cowardly racist cyber bullies she understands that criticism of "feminism" doesn't mean condoning patriarchy.