#florida man being fascist

[seileach67]

Florida election police question voters who signed an abortion petition

[cam1lla]

Neil Gaiman once reblogged a post I made that went super viral about the fascist book bannings and censorship of literature going on in my home state of Florida so I want to make something clear in case anyone ever finds my post on his blog or anything:

- I never fucking liked that man, when he reblogged my post that one time I was like “oh. cool. whatever”. I’ve always disliked that specific breed of smug male writer who views himself as a misunderstood genius boy wonder past the age of 25, and I never trust a man who makes being a “woke male feminist” part of his brand.

- I stand with all of the victims of Neil Gaiman and believe them totally and fully.

- In the coming daysmonthsyears, we may begin to see a shift in public perception. These evil, violent, abusive men are crafty. There are entire vile, evil PR firms dedicated to helping the worst men on the planet flip the script. It might be a targeted smear campaign against the women who have accused Gaiman, it might be a documentary simply titled “Neil” where, alone in his home, Gaiman will walk around pathetically and mumble sadly about cancel culture and how the Scientologists being mean to him as a kid means that he HAS to rape women and beat the shit out of them while he rapes them to cope with his trauma, or how somehow this is ONLY Amanda Palmer’s fault so burn the unlikable and unhinged witch but leave no smoke for the rapist man himself, or how his mental health is sooo fragile and sooo delicate and he had to go to rehab for his raping and beating women addiction so quit calling him an abusive rapist it makes him soo sad and don’t you shrill evil harpies know that it’s sooo much harder to be a sad lonely man than it is to be a rape victim? Yeah. Don’t fall for that shit. Don’t be a pawn in the incoming DARVO parade.

- Fuck Neil Gaiman and all men like him.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The far right aren’t the only ones showing up armed. Across the country, marginalized individuals are forming groups like the John Brown Gun Club and Socialist Rifle Association that claim to be devoted to the idea of community defense. Their rationale is informed by the massacres at Colorado’s Club Q and Florida’s Pulse nightclub, and tempered by a long cultural distrust of the police, who they say have repeatedly failed to protect them from — and in some cases even perpetuated — right-wing hate. 

Many sources interviewed for this story — particularly those who conceal their identities at protests — asked to use pseudonyms, in fear of being targeted or doxxed by the far right. Others were happy to share their names, judging that their public presence — or concealed-carry permits — shield them from harm. All of them, however, agree on one thing: The other side has guns and is willing to use them. The only answer is to be prepared to shoot back. 

[...]

“My community, the South Asian community, has been dealing with this shit for 30 years,” Azad says. “Every year, some dude throws a Molotov into a temple, or spray-paints swastikas on our houses.” 

Gato chimes in. “I don’t want to own guns and do this,” he says. “But I also don’t want someone coming after my wife because she’s a person of color.” 

But in Texas, Azad and Gato say, guns are a necessity — the right wing has them, the law allows them, and being armed is the only way to stay safe. 

“This is the Wild fuckin’ West, man,” Azad says. “We kinda do what we gotta do.”

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

Known walking garbage can Ted Cruz plans on introducing KOSA to the Texas state congress

God dammit I fucking hate this man

It hasn’t been introduced YET but we still need to keep on the lookout. The second this gets introduced, if you live in Texas, you need to be as loud as you possibly can and spread the word and contact your reps and senators and tell them to vote NO. Our state government in Texas has a nast habit of constantly ignoring us and passing everything we don’t want. So we need to be extra loud.

Once again, I’ll link resources for learning about KOSA and why it’s bad here.

Remember this is the same guy who tried to ban kids from under 13 from being on social media which is pretty much half the internet so that’s already a red flag. We stopped KOSA from becoming the law of the entire US last year, but we also need to stop it from passing in individual states. KOSA and other age verification/internet censorship and serveillance laws already passed in 13 other states including Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama. We can’t let Texas become another one.

And if you’re under 13 or still a minor anyway, your voice definitely matters on this. Don’t let these fuckers use you as a scapegoat for passing their fascist laws

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bill Day, Florida Politics

+

𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 :: @politicsusa46

I am incandescent with rage right now. I feel sick to the stomach. A US Vice President stood today on the soil of where so many Americans gave their lives to defeat fascism in Europe. He delivered a disgraceful speech that spat on their graves. Not that we should expect any different, given his boss skipped visiting the graves of fallen Americans in Europe for fear of getting his hair wet. The same man who called the same fallen heroes suckers and losers.

As a Brit that loves America and the American people, I am deeply disturbed at the insults delivered by a man who once described Donald Trump as an “idiot" and said he was "reprehensible." Privately, comparing him to Adolf Hitler. How times have changed. Vance is now part of the most authoritarian administration in American history. An administration actively seeking to deny bodily autonomy to women. An administration pursuing the same mass deportation of immigrants that Europe witnessed in 1930s Germany. Vance is a man that his own president doesn’t even see as his successor. He came to Europe to vomit his Christo-fascist bile on leaders from the UK and across Europe, in what appears to be a retribution tour designed to assert American power.

The U.S. are to my knowledge the only NATO country to have invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter after 9/11. We, his European allies, met that call with no questions asked. We sent thousands of soldiers to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to fight a war on the false premise of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’. We did this despite millions of our own citizens protesting in the streets of our cities. Our military stood shoulder to shoulder with his military and we, like many Americans, stood to salute our fallen young men and women returning home day after day. I have tears in my eyes as I write this, thinking of them and their loved ones. Our brave men and women willingly gave their all and far too many made the ultimate sacrifice in support of an American led war. For the record, 6000 Ukrainian solders server alongside American soldiers in Iraq. This, despite Ukraine not being a member of NATO. In 1994 upon signing the Budapest Memorandum they gave up their nuclear weapons in return for security assurances from the US and the UK. These were then reneged upon in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. They were told ‘An assurance is not a guarantee’.

Now, despite their friendship and their brave sacrifice on the battlefields of Ukraine, the President of the United States has decided to abandon them and hand a victory to an indicted war criminal, who illegally invaded the sovereign territory of a US ally. An ally who’s soldiers had previously lost their lives supporting America in its war on terror.

SHAME ON HIM. Shame on the man who dodged the draft and never served a day in defense of his nation. He is a coward and I would gladly call him that to his face. To all those Americans on social media currently posting vile insults to those who have always been there for America, I say, democracy is bigger than you, as you sit anonymously behind your phones posting poison.

America might have the most powerful army on the planet, but remember, that same army fled from Saigon after being handed their ass by a bunch of peasant rice farmers, armed with grenades made from discarded US coke cans. Ukraine have been to the Russian army what the Vietnamese were to you and we salute them. You might want to throw Ukraine under the bus while stealing their mineral deposits, BUT EUROPE WILL NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. I know for sure that the UK will not abandon the Ukrainian people. Our aid to GDP contribution already exceeds that of the US as does Poland, Germany Finland and others. The U.S. is no longer a reliable ally and if need be, we will stand with Ukraine without America. As for your pathetic tariffs, do your worst. You will soon have no friends but thugs and autocrats, so I’m sure Wun Dum Fuc will be right at home.

[lost-carcosa]

In every Judge Joe Dredd story I’ve ever read, there is at least one almost comically obvious moment when the author makes clear that the protagonist is a jackbooted fascist and not someone to admire. This may come across to the average reader as heavy-handed, but when the richest man in the world misreads the character as heroic, you can see why such heavy-handedness is sometimes necessary.

Shortly before former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his nomination for attorney general, Elon Musk posted on X that Gaetz was the “Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison.” Generally speaking, one’s model for justice should not be a fascist invented in part to illustrate the distinction between elite impunity and the brutality that ordinary people face. (Were Dredd’s zero tolerance for lawbreaking evenly applied to obscenely wealthy scofflaws like Musk himself, it would surely be less appealing to him.)

Musk’s media illiteracy is not particularly shocking—it seems to be part of a broader trend tied to the rise of Donald Trump. Genre stories that are meant to highlight the dangers of fascism, cruelty, or selfishness instead end up being misinterpreted or even condemned by those who find fascism appealing or see cruelty and selfishness as aspirational virtues.

The messaging in Dredd stories verges on didactic, but it also assumes at least a tacit objection to fascism in the reader. One of the series’ co-creators, Pat Mills, has said that his model for Dredd and the other judges was the monks at his parochial school, who subjected children to physical or sexual abuse. The stories are set in a dystopian future where several “megacities,” surrounded by a radioactive wasteland, are ruled by draconian judges. Initially established by the character of Eustace Fargo in response to rampant street crime, this judge system empowers its agents to convict and sentence those they deem criminals, and simply kill many of the people they encounter.

As mentioned, the implications of these stories are not exactly subtle. In one 2019 story arc, The Small House, Dredd confronts Judge Smiley, the Justice Department’s chief of black ops, over Smiley’s use of invisible assassins to murder democracy activists in Mega-City One. Dredd’s main objection to Smiley’s operations, it seems, is that Smiley’s assassinations are not following proper protocol. Dredd has no moral objection to killing democracy activists, but it has to be done by the book. Smiley calmly explains to Dredd, “We’re fascists. We rule. It’s the only way we can survive in this irradiated, dead world.”

Dredd is a true believer in the judge system, and as such lacks the corruption of his contemporaries. This renders him ethically superior only to the other fascists, however; he is an unthinking armed goon who would never allow the system to be changed just because the majority would prefer it. He acts fanatically in service to the unjust system he upholds, not to any larger ideals of honor or integrity. In the 2006 storyline Origins, a cryogenically frozen Fargo is briefly thawed and begs Dredd to undo the judge system. “It was never meant to be forever,” Fargo pleads, just before dying. “We’re the monster, we got greedy—wanted everything—so we killed the dream, Joe, we killed America!” Dredd, being Dredd, ignores Fargo’s pleas and, when asked later about Fargo’s last words, says Fargo wanted him to “keep the faith,” forever burying Fargo’s wish to end the judge system in favor of democratic rule.

As Trump reshapes the nation in his image, some of his supporters seem inclined to turn cautionary tales on their head, empathizing with villains or antiheroes to such a degree that they miss the point of these stories entirely, even when the writers make the message as clear as possible. We might call this problem Tony Soprano Syndrome, after the patron saint of flawed antihero protagonists. One undecided voter told a New York Times focus group earlier this year that Trump is “the antihero, the Soprano, the ‘Breaking Bad,’ the guy who does bad things, who is a bad guy but does them on behalf of the people he represents.”

Almost every single thing here is wrong, but it’s wrong in a way that illustrates the illiteracy that I am talking about. The Sopranos is by any measure one of the greatest television series of all time, focusing on the daily travails of a mob boss who tries to balance his mental health with keeping his marriage together and raising his children. But Tony is a murderer whose greed and ambition harm the people he claims to love. He is not a moral exemplar, nor is he intended to be; his selfishness helps no one else and is destructive to all around him. The same is true of Walter White, the protagonist of Breaking Bad, who at one point in the show literally looks at the camera and says of his crimes, “I did it for me.”

Again, the creators could not be more clear that these characters are horrible people whom others should not seek to emulate. There is a difference between thinking Darth Vader is an awesome character in the fictional context of Star Wars and, you know, wanting to be like Darth Vader, a psychotic child-killer. Quite similarly, Trump could not be more clear that he is out for himself, seeking the power of the presidency to enrich himself and his allies, protect himself from legal jeopardy, and bask in the cultlike adulation of his followers. But fans of Tony or Walter, living vicariously through the power and cruelty of the object of their admiration, invert the moral implications of those characters’ stories such that selfishness and malice are justified or laudable. In the same way, Trump supporters treat the real-life Trump, who seeks power for his own gain, as a fictionalized Trump whose vices are in service to a selfless cause.

Tony and Walter are also aspirational figures for a certain type of man experiencing a certain type of midlife crisis because, despite their body aging and their looks fading, they can still shape the world around them with a seemingly infinite capacity to endure or inflict violence. They want to tell themselves they’re protecting something—home and hearth perhaps—but actually want to validate themselves with a justification for hurting someone else, even if they have to invent one.

This is one reason the actor Anna Gunn, who portrayed Walter’s wife, Skylar, drew an intense backlash—she was the embodiment of the nitpicky wife whose jealousy held her husband back from greatness (as a murdering meth kingpin).

Walter represents the emotional state of a particular type of viewer—someone who wants to enjoy his ability to make himself feel good through violence and suffering, and doesn’t want his good time spoiled by a mouthy woman reminding him that the things he is doing are actually bad. This type of reactionary masculinity is itself emblematic of the Trump era, as if conservatives listened to feminist critiques of “toxic masculinity” and decided to shear all virtue from their conception of traditional manhood and retain only those parts that involve dominance and exploitation of others.

Examples abound. Last year, another heavy-handed comic-book adaptation, the television series The Boys—about a covert-ops group that targets the irresponsible corporate-produced “supers” who kill more people than they actually save—made its criticism of fascism so overt that many of its fascist-sympathetic fans began to get upset. These fans complained that the show had gotten “woke” once the plot began to more plainly illustrate the political points it had been making all along, to the dismay of those fans who were living vicariously through the antagonists’ acts of cruelty.

Similarly, the creators of the murderous Marvel Comics’ vigilante the Punisher have repeatedly clarified, to no avail, that, despite possessing some virtues, the character of Frank Castle is not a good guy. In addition to being a murderer, he is occasionally portrayed as a fascist. During the Civil War storyline, Castle is told off by his idol, Captain America, who describes Castle as  “psychotic,” fulfilling a “twisted notion of justice.” The Punisher creator Gerry Conway has called the embrace of Punisher iconography by real-life armed agents of the state “disturbing,” because “the Punisher represents a failure of the Justice system. He’s supposed to indict the collapse of social moral authority and the reality [that] some people can’t depend on institutions like the police or the military to act in a just and capable way.”

The collapse of trust in institutions is one of the stories of the past decade or so. But so is this moral degeneracy, motivated by the need to ideologically justify the place of a corrupt authoritarian strongman in the most powerful government in the world. What looks like declining media literacy may be something much worse—an affirmation of the underlying values in dystopian literature that inevitably lead to the dystopia itself.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: I may have activated my own trap card

Spoilers for a movie that's two months old and also out on home release.

So, Miles, Gwen, Pavitr (Spider-India), and Hobie (Spider-Punk) all seem to have modern left-wing politics, though Gwen's got edited out. Hobie's introduction specifically says he hates "fascists", which carries over from the original comics.

By the time Hobie came around, I assumed he was just another poser, cooler than the hero rival character, expressing generic leftie politics, and his punk ethos wasn't sincere.

Which is exactly what the writers wanted me to think.

Not only is Hobie perfectly sincere about being anti-authoritarian, but he's been helping Miles since before they even met. He's been blatantly stealing junk from the Spider Society to build his own universe-jumping watch, and disguising it as petty vandalism.

He even tries to talk Miles out of trying to join the Spider-Society before the reveal that Miles himself is an anomaly, and the SS (geddit?) tries to detain Miles.

When Hobie says he's against authoritarianism, he really means it.

Speaking of the left-wing politics, Miles has a "#BLM" pin on his bag. It's very visible while he sits next to his dad.

Who's a cop.

(TANGENT: A few years ago, someone drew a stupid, very bad comic where Spider-Man (Peter Parker) was a) black, b) hated cops, and c) assaulted and subdued riot cops when they asked him for help.

That the comic didn't even show the riot cops were wrong. We were just supposed to assume they deserve to be left to the mercy of an angry mob.

Also, in this comic, Uncle Ben was killed by a cop, not a random thug who Spidey could've stopped but chose not to. Which makes me wonder how that would shake out.

It's kind of weird for someone to look at a character who's about personal responsibility to an unhealthy degree, and use him to express their collectivist anti-cop terrorism fantasies. That, or they didn't think through their fantasies.)

During Spider-India's opening, Miles says "I love Chai Tea!" And Pavitr goes on a rant about how "Chai" means "tea". Later on, The Spot says he's been on a "journey of self-discovery", and Pavitr basically says he's racist.

Which is a tad ironic, because Spot is literally white. And also because Pavitr is the one making the racist assumptions.

And I personally go to a church - in England - that has a lot of non-white non-British people. Mostly Africans. And me, of course. I wonder if any Asians ever went on a journey of self discovery to South London.

And I don't just mean as a cab driver.

"Wait, SYABM, didn't you move to the UK for self-discovery?"

W-well, yes, partially.

Aside: I made the mistake of watching a Youtube video with the Chai Tea joke, and then I looked at the comments.

One guy said "tfw when Twitter users write a movie". An idiot (with much more upvotes) said "bro out here wanting blatant racism in movies".

...When the whole point of the joke is that the racism is not blatant.

It's only "blatant" if you're insufferably Twitterized. There are loads of redundant phrasings in English, like "ATM machine", and words often shift when they're adopted from other languages.

Also, "I dislike this joke" is not the same as "I want racism in this movie", when the "racism" in the movie is only there so it could be mocked.

One of the issues with putting real world movements in worlds that are drastically different - it's one of the main selling points of the franchise - is that it may seem odd that those movements exist in very similar form to the IRL version.

For example, Miles supports BLM in both his video game, and this. Which makes me think "did Trayvon Martin get shot in Florida? How about Mike Brown? Wouldn't the existence of supervillains throw things into a new perspective?"

Did I mention the giant George Floyd-style "REST IN POWER" mural to Miles' dead uncle? I cringed at that in the Wakanda Forever trailer, and I rolled my eyes at it here.

Floyd wasn't a saintly martyr, he was an unlucky violent thug.

Also, Aaron was a supervillain killed by another bad guy who nearly destroyed the city, not a cop.

Also, this is at a party to celebrate how Miles' dad is about to be promoted. Assuming Floyd died and the 2020 protests/riots also happened in Miles' universe, then it seems a tad tasteless to have a mural inspired by an anti-cop movement overlooking it, even if the party is not full of cops.

Spider-India lives in "Mumbattan".

The people who settled the Manhattan area were originally Indian. But the other type of Indian. The Indians we're not supposed to call Indians anymore.

The name "Manhattan" is even Native American.

The first permanent settlement was Dutch. Then the English got it. I guess the English could've shipped Indians to the other side of the world and eventually ceded the area to them, or maybe in this world India was a world-conquering superpower and Mumbattan is the result of...importing Native Americans?

Which would make Pavitr's complaint that "the British stole all of our stuff and put it in their museums" seem a tad hypocritical.

Of course, since I wrote all that, someone reminded me that Pavitr explicitly says the joint is in India.

"SYABM," you say, "you're overthinking this."

Yes, I am. Because the filmmakers didn't think it through. If you want to use ha-ha-funny to make a serious point, you invite examination of that point.

Miles (as Spidey) now works with his dad, though he disguises his voice. At one point, Miles tells his father that men bottle up mental health issues.

This is true (and ironic, considering Miles is hiding who he is from Jeff), but it's not the first time I've seen some progressive work try to address men's issues in an very awkward way. At least here, it's played for comedy.

Also, seems a tad hypocritical coming from a guy who wears a "#BLM" pin in the presence of his cop father.

Also, if you work the timeline, that would mean Miles was about 7 or 6 when BLM started. Which means he's gone most of his life knowing nothing else.

There was a controversy over a "protect trans kids" trans flag in Gwen's room, which was apparently edited out.

IMO, it seems a tad strange for a girl who feels estranged from everyone in her world to join a social movement, but what do I know? Maybe it was there before then.

Some people came to the extremely logical conclusion that Gwen herself is trans. Even though she's distinctly physically feminine and possibly too young for puberty blockers depending on Earth 65′s laws.

Like the "oh great, it's Liv" shippers, people are reaching really hard to see what they want to see.

Some people have said that Gwen's issues with her dad and herself seem awfully similar to the issues LGBTQIA2S+ kids go through.

Gee, it's not like, y'know, feeling estranged from one's family is a common theme in fiction about teenagers and superhero, and the whole "superpowers = minority" thing has been done to death for most of the past century.

Perhaps most notably - and clumsily - in X-Men.

I'm not saying this wasn't the intended subtext. I'm saying if it was, it would just be really, really cliche.

There's this recurring theme of people telling miles "how [his] story is supposed to go".

When he's at a meeting with his parents and his guidance counselor, the lady says his story of being a black-Latino son of an immigrant would sound great in the college application letters. His mom is a tad miffed, given that they're a) solidly middle class, and b) as a Puerto Rican, she considers herself American.

Miguel (Spider-Man 2099) doesn't want Miles in the multiversal council of Spiders, because Miles was bitten by the radioactive spider from a different universe. Which is why his local Spider-Man died, and the spider's home dimension has no Spider-Man.

Also, Miguel is fixated on "canon events". The idea that there are certain things, especially tragedies, that have to happen to Spiders, or their entire universe falls apart.

And he knows this, because he tried to take over for a version of him that got shot dead by a thug. Tried to raise his daughter.

And he watched as the universe collapsed in front of him.

So he's projecting his own guilt onto Miles, a tad.

According to TVtropes and other sources, this was actually about the people who didn't accept Miles as a replacement Spidey, possibly out of racism.

Yeah, that's real hard-hitting topical meta-commentary about a character who debuted 12 years ago. 8 years when the first movie came out.

I'd also like to point out that despite stereotypes of comic book fans, certain minority successors to banner superheros have been fairly well-received. Like Jaime Reyes, or Cassandra Cain.

(Note: I wrote that before the Blue Beetle movie came out. And flopped.)

And, of course, loads of people like Miles specifically because he's a minority Spidey, which is also racist, just from the other direction. In fact, a lot of his fans seem to forget the "Latino" part of "Afro-Latino". From what little I've seen of Miles early comics, they did actually put strong emphasis on his race.

I also suspect the filmmakers may be misinterpreting the usual successor knee-jerk reactions

as racism. If you're using an established brand name for your new hero, you're creating some expectations.

Also, you know the most popular meme about regular Spidey that I see? That Marvel's writers just keep making him suffer and don't want him to actually develop. Which would kinda make Marvel closer to Team Miguel than Team Miles.

Miles also gripes that Miguel is letting "some algorithm" tell him what to do. While I agree with the sentiment, I'd like to point out that, again, Miles supports BLM.

A movement popularized by an algorithm.

A movement made up of narratives and assumptions.

A movement which has never proven a single incident was because of racism.

During the big chase scene, we see a Spider girl in a wheelchair, aka Sun-Spider. She's from the comics. Same initiative that gave us "Web-Weaver".

Who is, of course, an extremely effete gay fashion designer Spidey. I kinda like his outfit, though the Spider-eyes with eyelashes is a little too far.

And Sun-Spider seems exactly like a character a stereotypical 90s executive and focus group would come up with. Down to the backward baseball cap.

(Turns out she's Dayn Broder's actual Spider-Sona.)

Also, while I was looking up that one black and white Spider who said "nowhere to run" (Metro-Spider, played by record producer Metro Boomin [/sic]), I found out that Aunt May's full name is "Maybelle", not just "May". TIL.

There's a bit of a double standard with this version of Spider-Woman, who's black and pregnant. -People in the movie - including Peter B - regularly point out how Peter B endangering his infant daughter Mayday by taking her along with him. But for some reason, nobody says a word about Jessica, who's an active-duty stunt-biking superhero.

Even regular motorbiking can be dangerous for pregnant women.

In fact, the movie portrays this as heroic and impressive. When Gwen sees  Jess is preggos, she asks if Jess can adopt her.

Not to mention the whole "afro and hoop earrings" thing, which seem like a bad idea for a type of hero who often gets into melee combat, even with Spider-Sense.

Yes, I'm aware that female heroes, including the Spider-Ladies, often have exposed hair. It's a genre convention. Incidentally, it was nice to see Batwoman wore a detachable decoy wig in the comics. Some bad guy tries to grab it in a fight? It comes right off.

Also, Jess doesn't have much actual character.

Being pregnant is not a character trait. In fact, her only real traits are basically "cool but stern sassy mentor", to contrast with Peter B. -Incidentally, someone on TVtropes pointed out the double standard. And when I saw the page again, a page-camper had deleted it, with no explanation.

Guess they couldn't stand someone pointing out the flaws of their waifu.

(One) Spider-UK in this movie is Muslim. I know she's Muslim because she wears a Spider-themed headdress. Note that regular Marvel 616 has a muslim lady Spider-UK, but her name is Zarina Zahari and she doesn't wear a hijabi.

(Also, she could be mistaken for Ms. Marvel.)

ms marvel.jpg

You might be thinking "wait, isn't a headdress impractical in a melee fight? Doesn't it give your enemy something to grab?" Yes, it is.

But so are Jess's earrings, afro, and being pregnant, so clearly there's a lot of artistic license going on.

Maybe it's partially tearaway, like Batman's cape.

I gotta wonder about the religious rules of wearing a head covering over a mask that *already* covers your entire head. Did she go see her imam and go "Okay, I have a really weird question..."

Come to think, Spidey is usually slim, but a lot of lady Spideys in this movie seemed to have wide hips. Including muscular ladies. Kris Anka's concept art goes really hard on wide hips. I don't know why. Stronger, faster character reads during the big chase?

I guess Spiders could be expected to have strong legs.

BOTTOM LINE:

I liked the movie overall, though the progressive bits made me roll my eyes a little. I...want to see the third one, with reservations.

[cleoselene]

Happy new year, tumblr friends. 2024 was a piece of shit, wasn't it? Just a festering pile. Kendrick Lamar ruining Drake, that was like, the only good thing I could think of that happened this year??? "Not Like Us" totally should win the Song of the Year Grammy. It won't, but it should, because that was a fucking commercial moment. It'll probably be something braindead like "Espresso" (no offense to Sabrina Carpenter fans but her music is not my thing x100). But man that was THEE song.

Music wise I was obsessed with Beyoncé most of the year and welp... that news about her husband being an alleged child rapist kind of took the wind out of those sails. Like, I fully believe Bey was groomed by Jay at a very young age and she's like Celine Dion in that the grooming was VERY effective and she will love that man forever and ever until death. It's depressing as hell. Lemonade is a masterpiece, but it was marketing. She was never going to leave that awful man. My mom is trying to tell me to keep loving her music, and I gotta admit, Beyoncé Bowl was phenomenal as like... everything she does is phenomenal. But the joy has been somewhat sucked out of it for me.

Rediscovered Vienna Teng and Phoebe Bridgers after the election, been more tuned out of the news than I have been in like, decades. I passively consume information, but I try to avoid it. Y'all, for me to avoid politics is bizarre. I remember my first election I followed, 1988, when I was 9, and I was SO for Dukakis. My family is politics/news junkies. But if 2016 fracture my spirit for this stuff, 2024 shattered it. Women will always be second class citizens in this country. It breaks me on a level that makes me question my identity -- why did I go to school for seven years getting a BA in Econ/Sociology and an MA in Sociology? Because I care about how the world works but no one else fucking seems to notice except fellow academic politics people like me, and they sure as hell aren't on the news (except Rachel Maddow, and she's just... kind of lost her plot for me too).

My soulmate dog died a week after the election exactly, and ever since the hits have just kept coming. My mom was so hesitant when I decided to adopt a young puppy, but I need her. I need her intense energy and many needs to distract myself from how shitty I think the world is.

I feel like a failure at even being a decent citizen because these MAGA monsters have just drained me. Another four years of this??? What the fuck, America. I went out to run two brief errands today and saw: -a pickup truck with "We The People" in the constitutional font on the back of the truck bed, but the window was covered in a massive Confederate battle flag. hey duder, you are giving your truck cognitive dissonance -a fucking cybertruck -a jeep crudely painted with the front as the American flag and hand-painted the words on one window: "GOD TRUMP LAW" and the other side said "STAND UP FOR SCIENCE" and I was awed at the even greater cognitive dissonance going on there. The font for these painted words I'd name "Scary Free Candy Van Sans" -a truck with a decal of Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes peeing on the words JOE BIDEN. There have been idk thousands and thousands of Calvin & Hobbes comics and Calvin has never ever peed on anything. Also the guy who designed the Punisher logo hates you fascist fucks too -a pickup truck with a decal of the silhouette of a women on her knees from above, and two hands wrapped around each of her braided pigtails as if using them for purchase, and the "drawing" fades out at the hip, but it's clear what's going on. I am saying "woman" because I hope that's what it was supposed to represent, the hair being in braided pigtails? Sus. But right next to that decal was one of praying hands holding a rosary and the word "Jesus" in some reverent font.

and that's a drive around Fort Myers, in Robert E. Lee County, Florida. I hate it here so fucking much.

anyway, here's hoping 2025 is at least gentler. The last two months of 2024 have had me feeling like I'm hanging on by a thread. I think it's my yearly winter MS flare too. Not a full on relapse, but every winter I just start to feel like garbage. And no, it's not S.A.D., I don't get that because Florida and I take vitamin D supplements anyway. it's just the time of year when everything starts to feel more and more inflamed

I'm enjoying World of Warcraft a lot still, but super bummed I can't seem to find an RP guild. Boo-urns

[gwopijon]

Donald Trump has won the president four years after he sat for months on Covid being deadly and after he incited an insurection.

He's an abjudicated rapist. He stole classified documents. He's a traitor. He is personally corrupt but it meant nothing to voters.

He hid the fact that Covid was deadly for months. We had empty shells and long lines at food banks but it meant nothing to voters.

He had zero ground game. He’s a felon. He incited an insurrection less than four years ago. But he was running against a woman again, and if there’s one thing Americans hate, it’s women.

In 2016, I still had some sense of hope that whatever happened during a Trump presidency, we could find a way to survive and recover. I don’t have that hope this time. Not after everything that’s happened, not after the past nine years of this utter sh-tshow. This is the American electorate looking at this orange clown and saying “that’s my guy.” This man spewed the most despicable, hate filled rhetoric and someone who is clearly declining physically and mentally. They heard “mass deportations” and they said “anything to bring down housing costs.” They heard every single warning about Trump’s authoritarian fascism and they said “sounds amazing.” They heard the promise of authoritarianism and they said “sign me up.”

What’s especially crazy is that Trump doesn’t even want to be president again. He was just running to avoid prison. This senile, hateful, disgusting 78-year-old man was exhausted and phoning it in for most of the campaign. He kept disappearing for weeks at a time to golf and sundown in peace. When he went to vote in Florida yesterday, he sounded almost resigned to losing. Even he underestimated the stupidity of Americans. Even he can’t believe that people fell for it again.

Kamala Harris was a great Democratic Presidential Candidate. She still lost.

In 2016, in the hours after Hillary Clinton lost, I was partly in a fugue state, half-numb and half-enraged. Accusations flew across the political spectrum – what if Hillary had done more in the Rust Belt, what if she did this or that differently, why did she run given the “Clinton Fatigue,” why did James Comey f–k her over in the final weeks. There’s really none of that eight years later. We couldn’t have asked for a better candidate than Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris was disciplined, joyful, wonkish, fun and cool. She energized the base and she had widespread cross-party appeal. The only things “wrong” with Kamala Harris were: she’s a woman, she’s a Black woman, and she isn’t Donald Trump.

This isn’t even because of one particular demographic – white women, men of all races, Latino voters, suburbanites, they all swung wildly against Kamala Harris.

I hope Kamala knows that she did the best she could with the hand she was dealt. The numbers don’t reflect a failure on her part, in my opinion. The numbers reflect a failure of the American electorate. Good news for the American electorate: Donald Trump promised that this would be the last votes you would ever have to cast, that he will “fix” everything so no one has to vote anymore. Congrats on making it count.

I’m terrified as a woman. As a biracial woman. As someone with complex healthcare needs. As a gay woman. As the friend of many LGBTQ+ people. And I’m genuinely scared for the many Republicans who had the courage to speak out against Trump, particularly Liz Cheney, Fascists do not deal lightly with perceived disloyalty.

Bibi and Putin are celebrating today. Gaza will be nuked into oblivion and Ukraine will be handed to Russia just like Taiwan will be handed to China. YOU did that!

I am struggling with my faith with feeling anger and hatred towards those ingrates who came and found the table set from the blood, sweat, tears, whipping, lynching and jailing of my ancestors and threatened us with a Trump/Vance/Heritage Foundation/ Project 2025 has Harris not tap danced on Gaza knowing full well, she was doing her job as VP she could not supersede the sitting President of this country. Some of ya'll knew she was personally against arming Israel and has always been for a 2 state solution. For those voters: FUCK YOU!

FUCK you if you voted 3rd Party.

FUCK you if you didn't vote at all while you could and should have.

In order it went white men, white Latino men, and white women who overwhelmingly voted for Trump. We should stop with “economic uncertainty” again as a cover.

Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas will fucking retire and this motherfucker will nominate who Leonard Leo orders him to nominate and the fucking Supreme Court will unleash on our asses for the next 40 years. Roe vs Wade and the overturning of Affirmative Action will be nothing to what is next to come...

We black people have no fucking allies. Folks been piggybacking off black blood, sweat and tears for too fucking long. We're tired. We're fucking done. DON'T fucking expect us anymore

What hurts most is, this is apparently who we are as a country. Racist. Misogynistic. It doesn’t happen twice unless that’s just who the fuck we are. The rest of us will continue to fight against it, but it just got a lot harder. I think MVP and others will still help guide us but DON'T fucking expect black women to fight our battles and YOURS. FUCK that. We're done. We're gonna fight our battles nowadays .

I will not protest anything Trump wishes to do. DON'T expect us black women to play Mammy and clean shit after you anymore. We're done playing Captain Save a Hoe for you ingrates. I think he should have full reign to do whatever he plans and America should get it good and hard. It's what they asked for.

This country is not the Eutopia some of you are foolishly hoping for. IF you think a unqualified backbench like AOC or corrupt Nina Turner (the OPPO dossier on her is out there) or Katie Porter or Warren would have fared better or will ever become president; think again. It will NEVER happen. NEVER gonna fucking happen!

We black women as of last night have done what Pontius Pilate did and to wash our hands with America:

[omgcatboi]

Here's one last political post because I have over 3k followers and I really think this is an extremely important message to spread around so PLEASE REBLOG but

Y'all... Do realize we can start petitions to fire the people in the supreme courts and all these legislators that are banning abortion and trans rights as well as erasing black and native history.... Right?

I see y'all talking about it .... But y'all don't actually do anything about it. Why not go directly for their jobs? Take they jobs!

I've been emailing legislators regularly telling them they're shit heads for passing these bills but they don't want to listen to one single fat trans man so why don't we start a petition to remove them?

A petition to reverse abortion bans in Florida recently got ONE MILLION SIGNATURES. THATS... UNHEARD OF.

and guess what? The bill is being challenged by legislatiors in FL.

I promise I won't make anymore political posts, I just... Think it's important we all know that we can take these mfs jobs.

It's good to talk about it but just talking about it doesn't do anything to stop these fascist bills. Tumblr queers work your magic with me, maybe we can get the Trever project on board?

[renthony]

i dont even really like it here (im just not a hot-weather girl) but like what do ppl even think 'cutting off' florida would even do to help. like we live here its not like we're the ones responsible for our governor being shit. fash is gonna fash help us stop them instead of using us as a punchline. some people..

Florida's been a punchline for so long now that I think people forget that real, living, breathing people actually live here. All people know about Florida is Florida Man, Disney, and extremely dead jokes from the Bush era about hanging chads (which I genuinely saw someone make the other day, which is just fucking baffling).

I wish I could show people the Florida that I know, full of incredible people and the most beautiful ecosystems I have ever seen. Florida has been absolutely ravaged by its history of colonization and an increasingly fascist state government, but god damn it, it's not "too far gone" to be nurtured and stewarded and loved.

Right now there are organizations fighting for the Everglades and all Florida's wetlands, there are cleanup efforts to help reduce effects of red tide, there are legal battles against sugar corporations and land developers, there are mutual aid networks spanning the entire goddamn state. There are people fighting for the land and for each other. Just in my own city I can name multiple groups dedicated to feeding people, getting clothes and toiletries in the hands of those who need it, fighting for immigration protections, uplifting the marginalized, and waging quiet unglorious war against the system that's currently brutalizing everything.

And god help us, we do it all while getting called "crazy crackheads" and "idiot swamp hicks" by everyone else in the entire fucking world.

[bendersmind]

Let's talk about "Twenties"

Listen up, you mother fuckers; I don't think this song is from the position of the fascists. I think there is an equally good argument to be made that it is from the position of the people being oppressed. Here is a cynical picture of a tarot card to get your attention:

As a note, while including an image was to get your attention, The Hanged Man is a card worthy of this post since it's usually interpreted as being about gaining wisdom or enlightenment. Yeah, tarot is bullshit magic nonsense but I like the Rider-Waite deck. Join me under the cut for some bullshit enlightenment.

Still here? Bad choice. Anyway, I'd like to start the interpretation, well, at the beginning. (Christ I'm bad at writing this shit anymore.) Our first verse is:

Listen up, hatchet man Set controls for the heart of the land Tell 'em all it is time You're the next in the chain of command (as my) Apparition (apparition) Direct the course for collision (grow) Suspicion (suspicion) For the Reich to come to fruition.

So, what we're seeing here seems like a conspiracy to destroy the power. If we go by some interpretations of Ghost having its own universe I've heard it explained as them being already in a post apocalyptic world where the goose stepping assholes are already sitting on top (Gospel of Ghost Podcast) . Specifically the fascists are followers of the Abrahamic God. My American ass really pulls at it being Evangelicals over Catholics but since Ghost is mostly a direct mirror of the Holy See. It probably depends on which you dislike more, Catholics or Protestants. (Spoiler: I dislike both equally and cannot decide which is more evil for the purpose of this post).

So, the first reference is to a "hatchet man". Generally speaking a hatchet man is a hired guy to infiltrate and fuck shit up. This could be interpreted as a facets sympathizer or member of the regime themselves; however, if we take it as the main government already being the fascists as I state in the prior paragraph this infiltrator could be a member of The Ghost Project sent to worm his way into the center of the ruling group.

Now it is time for a tangent about American politics because this song is inherently political and currently the dudes on the seat are playing "Fall of the Weimar Republic" on a speed run. As it stands, these fuckers are not new. Not even a little. The shitty shitty gang bang of the United States can be traced all the way back to the good old year of 2000. For those who may not know, the 2000 election was a cluster fuck of epic proportions. A short explanation is that there were some issues with ballots in Florida being counted improperly because we were still using the old school punch machines. It required a hand recount.

Now, this was where the real shit hit the fan. You can read an article about what people refer to as "The Brooks Brothers Riot" but a summary is that a bunch of Republican notables (including famous Rat Fucker and criminal Roger Stone) opposed the recount and started pounding on doors and shit. It basically interfered with observational requirements and delayed the counting progress giving the Supreme Court(which is garbage now but was still garbage then) time to call the whole thing off because there was no way to do it constitutionally (LEL AM I FUCKING RIGHT?!).

(Tangent here, I could argue this shit started with "why don't they clean toilets?" Newt Gingrich but I don't want to talk about that fucker because I might fucking die of anger if I do)

Anyway, GWB then got the opportunity to put John Roberts in place (you know, the current chief justice that presided over the "Citizens United" decision) which meant that the whole thing was a fucking wash and shit was already going to be trash for a while. The Barack Obama got elected and the racists in the United States lost their fucking minds and decided that fascism was the way to go. That's a whole different conversation involving Right-Wing media but I think this post was about something else.

Oh yeah, it's about a Ghost song. Anyway, the point is that these people have been running around fucking shit up for more than 2 decades. The infiltration isn't of a wonderful amazing democratic progressive government, it's an infiltration of an already conservative governmental body. That dude, whoever it was, is somehow able to work his way up to the second in command position and start directing the government in such a way that they are set up some sort of infighting(suspicion) to cause the worst bastards to purge everything(collision) allowing the worst fuckers to take over and form their stated Reich.

Lets move on after that stupidly long explanation of 8 lines of text.

In the twenties (twenties) We'll be singing in a reign of pennies In the twenties (twenties) We'll be soaring in disguise of Bevies In the twenties (twenties) We'll be smooching at the feet of Da Rulah In the twenties (twenties) We'll be grinding in a pile of Moolah

Now this is going to take us to the meat of what the fuck I'm talking about when I'm talking about this song being about the people. If you watch the video below you can hear for yourself where the inspiration for "Twenties" comes from.

So, in this clip some guy named Tobias talks about how he was watching a show where he saw this real low production backyard concert with super aggressive rap music. The whole thing sounds like underground parties that would be attended by a whole bunch of the working class who might not be able to afford some of the higher production concerts. You know, those people who could be singing in a reign of pennies(partying under a fascist government that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer). They'll still be there reigning as paupers over the streets and ready at any moment to rise up and fuck the dudes up top.

Then we go back to the Ghost Project itself, flying in disguise of Bevies. And there is some double meaning here so stick with me (if you're still reading this you might as well). Bevies is apparently a somewhat old British slang for drinks of an alcoholic nature; it also can mean (spelled as bevy) a large crowd. I propose that "flying in disguise of Bevies" implies that they will be hiding in large crowds passing messages attached to drinks. Some real spy craft shit there and I am fucking here for it.

The whole smooching at the feet and grinding in moolah almost feels like the Matrix orgy scene to me. It doesn't really need clarification. We're gonna be fucking like mad in the streets. You know, on a bed of pennies. Moving on.

Then we're gonna come to the line that I think is the one that gets people the most on the "This is a song for and by fascists" hike:

Listen up, you motherfuckers Those Ivy League dopes, they wanna mock us Tell 'em all this is war And not fighting a war is for suckers (kiss my) Assassinate (assassinate) Gather the tools to disintegrate (feed) Hate (hate) Reaping the seeds as a reprobate I'm number one, you're number two You've got a lot of God's work to do

So, I get it. The unwashed masses of fascist sympathizers are anti-education. That being said, do you know how many congress people have law degrees? 30.9% in the House and 51% in the Senate. Yeah, those fuckers are mocking you. Go check out which of your favorite Gaslight Obstruct Project peeps went to Ivy Leagues or have a law degree. My favorite is Cancun Cruz who went to Harvard law. That's a twofer!

So the following line about fighting a war again calls to the fascist supporters wandering around vomiting rhetoric. And it totally could. But consider this: The current Orange Orator talked about being an anti-war president. He also talked about getting us out of Afghanistan (and even set up the deal with the Taliban to pull-out with pretty much no plan). He did, but he did it poorly and blamed it on the guy in office. And you can't tell me it wasn't his Cabinet of Cuntbags that advised him to have it in 2021 so he could let it go through if he lost and blame it on Joe Biden. Cheeto Benito would have pulled out of that deal and everyone knows it because he's a lying liar who lies.

This is a war, it's a fucking class war. This is no longer about left and right, it's about the billionaires and the working class. The billionaires are trying to use the law and executive orders to take away all of the organizations that help the People fight back (OSHA, SEC, CDC, NIH, HHS, etc) instead of fighting that war that they deserve. There are more of us than there are of them and you'll bet that avoiding that war is for suckers. (Also, Mango Mussolini called Soldiers "Losers" and "Suckers" so he sounds like he thinks "not fighting a war is for suckers".

Not touching "Assassinate". Nope.

But when we think of gathering the tools to disintegrate it could mean gathering up the bits and pieces the billionaires leave laying around while they are blasting away at our civil society. You see the Federal layoffs. People are pissed. The most affected states are the states that voted for the Grand Ol' Pustules and they will suffer the most. Gather up those people and feed them hate. Hate of the fascists, hate of the wealthy, hate of the people actively crushing the necks of the people under their fucking Italian loafers. They will reap the seeds they've sewn themselves with their shit policies. The lack of principals from their leaders and their application of a double standard in the open will fuck them over.

I think it is worth a note that the last two lines are sung in a different tone of voice than the majority of the song. That says to me that that is what the leaders are speaking to each other. If we go back to the infiltration of the regime the "number two" here is the Ghost Project plant. "A lot of God's work to do" indeed. What a place to put someone who wants to smash the image of the God of the Church. If it really is a hatchet man, it could very well be someone bought. No comment on the current bundle of fucks but you can take that how you want.

Here we come to the second chorus after a repeat of the first:

In the twenties (twenties) We'll be taking no shit from no chulas In the twenties (twenties) We'll be grabbing 'em all by the hoo-has

The discussion here is how do we understand the word Chula. Chula in the common meaning is used for a hot lady but depending on where you are and who you are talking to can be used for an object, or can be used to indicate something being trashy. It could also very well mean bitch. With the significant variations from place to place it's hard to say what it's meant to be understood as.

In any case I think the usage of "hoo-has" here is obviously a sarcastic thing. I mean, we can be like "yeah, but it rhymes though". Depending on in what order the song is written or revised blah blah blah it could very well have been the authors finding a mocking way to use the joke and "pussies" is a hard word to rhyme on a general level. So, you know, whatever. I don't think it's a celebration of the crazy shit a crazy old man said.

Almost there my dudes. Still with me? Alright, here we go for the bridge/third chorus:

In the twenties (twenties) We'll be dancing in the fields of freedom In the twenties (twenties) We'll be crushing them laws 'cause we don't need 'em In the twenties In the twenties All the way to the thirties

Alright, so "dancing in the fields of freedom" is simple, once we crush those fucking fascist bastards we'll be free. We'll crush the restrictive shit laws because they are trash and we don't need them. And there will be a party. A fucking great party, all the way until the 30's where things . . . go to shit again? Well fuck.

Anyway, here is your alternative interpretation of "Twenties" as a protest song instead of some sort of fascist anthem. It isn't almost entirely because I want to do a pole routine to the song and I don't want it to be interpreted as a fascist celebration because, well, fuck fascists.

[gaykarstaagforever]

Jair Bolsonaro, a man who thought this official picture of him is cool and not stupid

is now being charged with actively plotting the January 6th-style coup in 2022 he hoped would allow him to retain Brazil's presidency after he lost the election.

When it happened, he was in Donald Trump's adopted state of Florida, pretending to get medical care. While being in close contact with the Trump family the whole time. And Don Jr. called the guys who attempted the coup "freedom fighters."

The coup only failed because the military leaders who were supposed to join it to keep a fascist dickhead in power had a last-minute change of heart.

Bolsonaro stayed in Florida for 3 months, avoiding arrest, until he decided to go home, no doubt because he probably was working on some other scheme to finish the job.

He should copy the Trump playbook again and see if he can get a slight majority of racist idiots to say fuck it and reelect him.

...Oh wait. Brazil's Supreme Court banned him from running again after he tried to kill them.

Unlike our Supreme Court, which said Trump is a god-king who can kill whoever he wants and can never be put in jail.

It's gotta feel real bad, knowing Donald Trump is better at destroying democracy than you.

[lazy-to-an-l]

The current times are a reflection of the 1920's in more ways than one

the false confidence the U.S Government has in their ability to control their public is astounding. They support Ukraine, a country invaded with the goals on annexing it by a hostile military campaign with no care for Geneva Conventions. But try to paint Israel as the true victim in this scenario, when they are not. They are a hostile military force committing genocide for the purpose of annexing more land.

Could the U.S. absolutely annihilate every single one of their citizens? Yes, they could. They have the military weapons necessary to do so and have no qualms letting their people die.

The timing of Covid-19, Ukraine, the BLM movements, the resurgence of The Hunger Games which is based upon a future U.S., and the U.S. trying to back Israel has only further painted every representative within this country with a target. It is truly shocking they do not see the lack of control they have over Gen-z, a generation they freely let die in school shootings, and who were shown grotesque violence yearly for 9/11 remembrance. Who grew up polarized by a war in the East, that was truly for oil, and who's teachers taught us that the U.S. put the people in charge who later attacked our doorstep.

All eyes on Rafah, keep watching, we cannot forget who has condoned it. The people funding this genocide will die before we do, and it is our job to make sure their history and their wrong doings are never forgotten. The victors can write history, but those who outlive them will always have the last word.

I do not know who we can vote for this election, there is genocide supporters and there are fascists in the voting poll. There is no good option, and no 3rd party will win right now unfortunately they are not doing enough to get publicity in order to do so. I wish they were, but they aren't, not to win a presidential election. Either we elect someone complacent in genocide who will try to protect minorities rights and the environment, a fascist who has banned books for being about minorities who tried to write into law that he could still be in charge of Florida even as a president, or a man who quite literally was kicked out of New York's business sphere and is facing federal court for crimes he truly committed. There IS no morally good option, only varying shades of "who has done the least morally awful and dangerous thing" and who could actually win.

[xkittzkornerx]

JD Vance is the one to watch

i know the tangerine fascist chose someone younger and more book-smart than him for VP. someone possibly more extremist than himself, just in case. just in case. just in case he croaked after winning the ticket.

i've said it several times before, and i'll keep saying it: Don looks atrocious, like a mixture of leather and wax melting off a worn armature. put simply, he is unwell. every time i see the man he looks closer to physically collapsing. the man turns seventy-nine (79) this June and has not taken care of himself throughout his life (or maybe it's the hatred shredding through him). we ripped on Biden for being too old and clearly senile. well, Donnie's only three (3) years younger. if he dies in office (which tbh isn't that unlikely), his little Himmler will take his place. he'll attempt to make all of the US what he has torn up Florida to be like. Vance will eventually run for president himself, especially in the event that Don lives to see the end of their term. it'd be his last time working in the oval office, but Vance's story is nowhere near done yet. he could, theoretically, run for president in 2028. he could, theoretically, win a term. he could, theoretically, run for president again in 2032. he could, theoretically, win that term.

younger, spryer, better read, coherently spoken, and potentially more malicious. more bigoted. more fascist. unlikely to be as obviously dumb and selfish. likely to have learned from the mistakes of his predecessor.

it's one of the only intelligent choices Don has ever made. part of me questions if he came up w it himself...

all this while the Democratic party sits. silent.

we're in this together y'all. we are all we have left.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Well, this SHOULD prove to Disney that there is just no pleasing these people. It's a forever losing battle, so they should just quit it.

Incoming fascist-in-chief is completely unaware of not only Ike Perlmutter's former role within The Walt Disney Company as the former CEO/Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, and likely doesn't care, but just anything in general about how the company is currently operating... Neither does the rest of his cult.

Disney has spent many of the past 8 or so years trying to appease MAGA, whether it's their current bullshit (dequeering INSIDE OUT 2 and WIN OR LOSE, neutering HOPPERS), or their initial donating to Florida's horrid Don't Say Gay tyranny, or all the other suck-up things they've done. MAGA doesn't notice, MAGA doesn't care. They only start paying attention when a nonbinary character appears for a split second in the far background of a cartoon. All of a sudden they're wide awake! Woke, I mean!

So, Disney... Iger... The board... Quit it. This is who you're trying to appease, and it's clearly not working lol.

Also, a little bit about Mr. Perlmutter. While he was still top dog at Marvel, he didn't allow much creative freedom at Marvel Studios. Kevin Feige initially had to answer to him and a sort-of think tank of other executives, and as a result made many of the movies into these nightmare productions, such as AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. And others, where the directors walked away - see THOR: THE DARK WORLD and ANT-MAN. Feige eventually had the studio answer exclusively to Disney heads a little after CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR was completed.

Perlmutter held up the development/production of BLACK PANTHER, CAPTAIN MARVEL, and BLACK WIDOW, as he was *sure* that audiences wouldn't go see black and women-led superhero movies... How wrong he was, right? Not like BLACK PANTHER and CAPTAIN MARVEL weren't successful movies or anything, right? Right?

Lemme check and see, oh-

And not like BLACK PANTHER also spawned a hit sequel and there's a third movie on the way.

Sure, some weirdo will bring up BLACK WIDOW (released a little after COVID vaccines started slowly getting out, as a theaters/Disney+ PVOD same-day release) and THE MARVELS, but that's besides the point. People *flocked* to BLACK PANTHER, CAPTAIN MARVEL, and WAKANDA FOREVER. BLACK PANTHER 3 will probably make a boatload of money, too. All three of those movies are pretty political to some degree, too. All movies that, despite being PG-13 action-fests, had a lot of kid audiences too.

After Marvel Studios stopped answering to Perlmutter, it's not like anything changed. From 2017-2019, it was a streak of uninterrupted massive hit movies... Including BLACK PANTHER and CAPTAIN MARVEL. The highest-grossing THOR movie of all, THOR: RAGNAROK, was released during this period and was about how Asgard had a long sordid colonialist history. Like, c'mon. Things have only been wobbly post-ENDGAME and post-COVID outbreak, but that has less to do with who is headlining these movies and their messages, and it has more to do with other things. Any halfway-smart person could tell ya that!

Anyways, moral of the story: These freaks are not gonna notice when you bow to them, when you remove trans characters from cartoons, when you dial back environmental messages, when you sideline different groups of people... They'll only notice when you do something benign that offends them.

Funny how they say that about anyone on the left, eh? These weirdos are the ones who sound like they're the "easily offended" ones, even when they get everything that they want! Because it'll never be enough.

So Disney... Ignore them, will ya? Make THAT your New Year's resolution. Happy New Year everybody.