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fantomcomics · 1 year ago

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What’s Out This Week? 8/2

Maybe the real summer was the friends we made along the way?

A Girl On The Shore Collected Edition HC - Inio Asano

Eisner-nominated author, Inio Asano's A Girl on the Shore is now in a hardcover, collector's package! Koume Sato and Kosuke Isobe are two teenagers living in a sleepy Japanese seaside town. After getting used and dumped by her crush, the emotionally damaged Koume decides to start a relationship with Kosuke, without any emotions involved. However, they both soon discover that sex with no strings attached often leads to unexpected complications, not just for themselves but also the people around them.

Abe Sapien: The Drowning & Other Stories TP - Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Emi Lenox

In the early 1980's, new B.P.R.D. agent Abe Sapien was set to retrieve the corpse of a powerful warlock off the coast of France. Abe quickly finds himself in a battle with a century old evil in the form of demonic monks. Mike Mignola and Jason Shawn Alexander's premiere Abe solo series sets the stage for a collection of tales tracing Abe's times both as an agent of the B.P.R.D., and delving into his long-hidden origins. A haunted lake, South American vampires, and a mad scientist seeking out man's missing link are chronicled here! This paperback omnibus edition collects Abe Sapien: The Drowning, The Devil Does Not Jest, and Lost Lives and Other Stories.

Amongst Us GN Vol 1 - Shilin Huang

Veloce loves Blackbird. Blackbird loves Veloce. These two young women may have strange chemistry and seemingly nothing in common, but somehow, their offbeat relationship works. Join them for a dance through the city they call home as they satisfy Blackbird's sweet tooth and indulge Veloce in her attempts to understand fashion. In an alternate universe, this sorceress and assassin share a very different reality... but in this one, they're a modern couple who have built a life together- and they intend to enjoy it.

At The Flower Capital GN - Rihito Takarai

Motoharu, second child and successor of the Tsujimura clinic, has always held his childhood friend, Akira Hazumi, close to his heart. Unfortunately, when Motoharu realized his affections towards Akira were more than just simply friendship, and confessed, their relationship became strained. Unable to reciprocate Motoharu's feelings, Akira turned him down, and they slowly grew apart from one another. Despite the ongoing tension between them, Motoharu still decides to enroll in the same university and department as Akira. However, it's not easy getting over the pain of being rejected, and Motoharu soon finds himself visiting Geishas in the middle of the night, in a desperate attempt to forget everything that happened.

Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer #1 (of 5) - Casey Gilly, Oriol Roig & Ario Anindito

Thess is all grown up, having taken up the mantle as the new Slayer! But with new responsibilities comes new enemies, and a mysterious clan will do anything to get to her, even if it means using her friends as bait.

Class War TP - Rob Williams, Trevor Hairsine, & Travel Foreman

Love your country then rip it down! The critically-acclaimed indie superhero hit gets its own paperback collection for the first time! Beloved supersoldier, American, uncovers the dark truth behind The White House and burns the word 'Liar' into the forehead of The President on live TV. Now on the run with a rogue CIA agent, he intends to reveal everything he now knows to the world. Can his former teammates, the superteam Enola Gay, stop him?

Conan The Barbarian #1 - Jim Zub, Roberto de la Torre, José Villarrubia & Dan Panosian

Years after the battle of Venarium, a weary CONAN returns to his homeland to seek rest and solitude. However, a mysterious scout rides in to warn the Cimmerians of an imminent threat on the march from the Pictish wilderness. Will CONAN and his new ally be able to hold off this new horde of invaders?

The Devil Is A Part-Timer Anthology GN - Satoshi Wagahara

The Devil King and his friends check out a wedding venue, buy swimsuits to work at the beach and...get marooned on a desert island?! This collection of original comic stories, drawn by a lineup of artists and fans of the series, collects episodes which may, or may not, have taken place during the main story!

EVE: Children Of The Moon TP - Victor Lavalle, Jo Migyeong & Ario Anindito

Eve already saved the world once, embarking on a perilous quest to protect what remained of humanity after a deadly virus outbreak... but the story continues! Selene, a source of hope for the many children that flocked to her rest stop, resents Eve, Eve's sister, and Wexler. The conflict amongst them and the survivors is dire... even sowing the potential for civil war. But an A.I. with terrifying origins from deep beneath the sea brings new revelations about the threats they face... not only of earth, but beyond.

Fire & Ice #1 - Bill Willingham, Leonardo Manco & Bill Sienkiewicz

More than four decades ago, two iconic creators came together to bring to the silver screen an amazing new world of magic and adventure. In their classic animated film Fire and Ice, legendary artist FRANK FRAZETTA and famed director RALPH BAKSHI crafted a unique vision of beauty and danger, of good versus evil, all cast against a hypnotic backdrop of savage prehistoric splendor. Now, at long last, this timeless vision is expanding into comics with the first new story to revisit Frazetta and Bakshi's remarkable realm since 1982! Before the fire waned and the ice spread across the world...before Teegra met Larn...before everything you know about the unforgettable animated movie came to be, there were the before times - times when evil might still be blunted, times when innocence was not yet lost. In Fire and Ice #1, acclaimed comics writer BILL WILLINGHAM (Fables, Legenderry) joins forces with artist LEONARDO MANCO (Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, Blaze of Glory) - making his triumphant return to comics - and a new legend is about to be born!

The Little Red Fish GN - James Moffitt & Bizhan Khodabandeh

An exquisite reimagining of the Iranian Revolution like you've never seen before. An aquatic reef held down by an oppressive regime of blood-thirsty heron struggles to rise up in this harrowing tale of self-discovery, heritage, and revolution. The Little Red Fish retraces the events of the Iranian Revolution portraying events from the perspective of those actually involved. Part historical text, part guerilla warfare, all political allegory, The Little Red Fish vividly captures an often overlooked part of history. Oh, and there's that magical orb thing...

Lupin The Third: Thick As Thieves Classic Collection HC Vol 1 - Monkey Punch

Monkey Punch's immortal creations are among the most beloved characters of all time, from master thief Lupin III to his trusted sidekicks and tenacious rivals. Seven Seas is proud to present the follow-up to last year's hit Greatest Heists with this second "best of" release. Thick as Thieves is another curated collection of some of Monkey Punch's best stories and chapters of Lupin III from throughout the classic manga's history, featuring all-new translations in a beautiful oversized hardcover. Let this iconic manga steal your heart all over again!

Malcolm Kid & The Perfect Song GN - Austin Paramore & Sarah Bollinger

Debut creator Austin Paramore and artist Sarah Bollinger strike a chord in this humorous and heartfelt story about love, loss, legacy, and the music that ties them all together. What does the perfect song sound like? Normally, Malcolm Kid wouldn't give this type of question the time of day. As a straight-B student with a heart of copper, he is far more concerned with overcoming mediocrity than he is with achieving perfection. But that all changes when he stumbles across the LK-2000-a strange keyboard cursed with the soul of an old jazz musician. Malcolm soon learns that the only way to free this musician's soul is by performing the perfect song. With much hesitation, and the help of his lifelong friend January Young, Malcolm embarks on a musical journey across the city of New Bronzeville in the hopes of discovering the perfect song and finding himself as a musician along the way.

Mexikid GN - Pedro Martin

A poignant, hilarious, and unforgettable graphic memoir about a Mexican-American boy's family and their adventure-filled road trip to bring their abuelito back from Mexico to live with them. Pedro Martin has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito-his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.

Neil Gaiman’s Hansel & Gretel SC - Neil Gaiman & Lorenzo Mattotti

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman and fine artist Lorenzo Mattotti join forces to create Hansel and Gretel, a stunning book that's at once as familiar as a dream and as evocative as a nightmare. Mattotti's sweeping ink illustrations capture the terror and longing found in the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Gaiman crafts an original text filled with his signature wit and pathos that is sure to become a favorite of readers everywhere, young and old.

Neptune GN Vol 1 Book 1 - LEO

The Worlds of Aldebaran chronicle mankind's often difficult first steps on distant worlds. Full of fantastical alien life, human drama and believable science, it's a saga that will keep you gazing up at the stars in wonder. After three years of study and training, Marie is now officially a member of the UN Special Forces. But she's barely had time to celebrate her graduation that an extraordinary event forces her to leave for her first mission: an alien ship of unknown origin has just arrived in orbit of Earth. As no contact can be established with its crew, Marie and her team are sent to board the vessel and investigate.

The Pirate & The Porcelain Girl TP - Emily Riesbeck & NJ Barna

Our Flag Means Death gets a magical, sapphic twist in this swashbuckling young adult graphic novel adventure full of high-stakes adventure, fantastical creatures, and a swoony enemies-to-lovers romance. "I want to be beautiful. I want to be interesting. I want to be enough." That was Ferra Brickminder's prayer to win back the love of her life. And the gods answer-just not in the way she expected. After hoping for a miracle, Ferra instead watches her skin turn into delicate and dangerously breakable porcelain. Elsewhere, Brigantine de la Girona, a disgraced orc pirate captain, has her own problems. Penniless and banished from her home, Brig struggles to make ends meet with her crew as her only support. So, when a desperate Ferra enlists Brig to sail her across the Great Sea to her ex-girlfriend's home for a very handsome fee, Brig is happy to strike a deal. Pampered Ferra and tough-as-nails Brig quickly butt heads, bickering their way across the high seas, but as they encounter increasingly perilous obstacles-including the gods themselves-the two become reluctant allies... and maybe more.

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 - Brandon Easton, Simone Ragazzoni & Inhyuk Lee

After the devastating events of the Macross saga, RICK HUNTER must face an all new threat, along with the ghosts of his past when a Zentraedi splinter group attacks Yokohama, Rick is called to investigate! Piloting the new prototype YF-4 Veritech, Rick encounters old friends and new enemies, all while recounting the moments of his life that shaped most epic moments in the ROBOTECH universe!

The Sacrificers #1 - Rick Remender, Max Fiumara & Dave McCaig

Tomorrow is a harmonious paradise thanks to five families who make everything perfect...for the price of one child per household. Now, as that bill comes due, a son expected to give everything for a family that never loved him and an affluent daughter determined to destroy utopia must unite to end one generation's unnaturally protracted reign.

Saving Chupie GN - Amparo Ortiz & Ronnie Garcia

Violeta Rubio only has one goal in mind for her first-ever trip to Puerto Rico: help Abuelita reopen her beloved restaurant, La Casita. After the destruction wrought by Huracán Maria, La Casita needs all the help it can get. The only problem is that Violeta's whole family thinks they can do it without her. Now Violeta doesn't have anyone to hang out with or anything to do. But when best friend duo Diego and Lorena need help capturing the rumored chupacabra, Violeta sees her chance to change all that. What she isn't expecting is to run straight into the beast! Only... he isn't as monstrous as everyone assumes. Sure, he's got some scales and spikes, big red eyes, and pointy fangs-but he's a totally puppy and loyal to a fault. Violeta must find a way keep Chupie hidden and convince her newfound friends that he isn't anything to be scared of. And if that isn't hard enough, a new threat lurks around the corner that is dead set on capturing Chupie for their own nefarious means. Will Violeta be able to save Chupie from the danger that surrounds them without sacrificing everything else in the process?

Slime Shop GN - Karina Garcia, Kevin Panetta & Niki Smith

YouTube Slime Queen Karina Garcia teams up with writer Kevin Panetta and artist Niki Smith for a fun, colorful adventure that follows three friends as they run their own slime shop and the slimes who come alive to help them. Bailey, Sophia, and Jayden run the BSJ Slime Shop, but what the three slime makers don't know is that when they're not around, the slimes come to life! When the creators start shipping slimes off to who knows where, the slimes left at the shop start to worry that they're next. Even as Polly tries to convince her friends that everything is fine, Boris, a grumpy, green slime, starts taking things into his own hands. Then slimes start disappearing and suddenly the shop is full of zombie slimes. With half the shop zombified and the other half scared silly, Polly has no choice but to go on a quest, along with her friends Max and Karma, to discover the truth about the slimes being shipped off and find a way to save their friends before it's too late!

Team Trash: A Time Traveler’s Guide To Sustainability GN - Kate Wheeler & Trent Huntington

Studious environmentalist Charlie is stuck with a science fair partner who seems like her complete opposite: Charlie wants to save the planet, and all Oliver wants is to doodle in his notebook. But when a mechanical mishap sends the two traveling back through time, they'll have to work as a team to return to the present day. In order for the time machine to send them back, the unlikely duo must gather data on recycling throughout the ages-from sustainable marketplaces in Edo Japan to garbage-gobbling pigs in 19th-century NYC. Yet the closer the team gets to the present day, the more that plastic presents a problem: they're running out of time. Harnessing their frustration over the daunting ecological future they've inherited, Charlie and Oliver discover the ways in which they can use their sustainability knowledge to return home and build a better earth.

Werewolf Jones & Sons Deluxe Summer Fun Annual HC - Simon Hanselmann & Josh Pettinger

In the tradition of the British hardback annuals comes the Werewolf Jones & Sons Deluxe Summer Fun Annual! One hundred fun-filled pages of spoofs and goofs for the whole family to enjoy (no minors allowed)! Put together with lots of love by Simon Hanselmann and rising underground star Josh Pettinger (Goiter, Power Wash). Get ready for one of the hottest summers on record (not merely due to rising climate-based anomalies)!

Whatcha getting this week, Fantom Fam?

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ao3feed-byler2 · 2 years ago

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I’ve got you Nancy Wheeler.

by urpsychokillerr

A ‘what-if’ Robin was introduced in the first season. A spin on season one of what might’ve happened if Robin teamed up with Nancy due to her unsurprising friendship with missing Barb. And how is she going to handle finding the truth about Barb’s disappearance while also juggling with the realization that she may be into Nancy Wheeler? And the thought of a new friendship with a boy whose secret she’d end up discovering — it’s going to get messy.

Words: 1329, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/F

Characters: Robin Buckley, Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers, Barbara "Barb" Holland, Mike Wheeler, Will Byers, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Eleven | Jane Hopper

Relationships: Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Barbara "Barb" Holland, Barbara "Barb" Holland & Nancy Wheeler, Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler

Additional Tags: Wet Dream, Lesbian Robin Buckley, Bisexual Nancy Wheeler, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Pansexual Jonathan Byers, Gay Will Byers, Minor Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Robin Buckley Has a Crush on Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley Has a Crush, Stranger Things Spoilers, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Alternate Universe - Stranger Things Fusion, Unhappy Nancy Wheeler, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Implied Relationships, Robin Buckley Had a Wet Dream, Autistic Robin Buckley, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Coming Out, Drunk confessions, Hurt Robin Buckley, Hurt Nancy Wheeler, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Steve Harrington Being an Asshole, Protective Jonathan Byers, Hurt Jonathan Byers, LGBTQ Ally Jonathan Byers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Strangers to Lovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, Tags Are Hard, Hawkins (Stranger Things), Hawkins High School (Stranger Things), Canon Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Enemies to Lovers, Will Byers Is Not Okay, Light Choking

from AO3 works tagged 'Will Byers/Mike Wheeler' https://ift.tt/82bcLnF

#byler #michael wheeler #will byers

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the-ghost-in-your-curtains · 1 year ago

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I completely forgot we actually see Argyle reacting to a crush- on Eden! He goes drop-jaw silent, a CONTRAST to Robin's usual rambling.

However, theory is not yet disproven as the next time we see him that episode, he has fully rizzed Eden into smoking with him, both of them just hanging out.

So, reason suggests that he's a good talker. Also, the memorable juxtaposition of "Anything for you" (Argyle to Eden) and Robin (wordlessly, might I add) getting TO HER KNEES for Nancy, despite it being absolutely unnecessary.

In both instances, Robin and Argyle go quiet for their presumed crushes.

Well, let's recap similarities and differences.

Sim:

Fairly anxious

Ramble when nervous (or sobering)

Have shown awkward simping in front of crushes completely UNNEEDED

Both seen being into women (pretty innocuous detail here)

Both are ride or die for their besties (see; Argyle just straight booking it with his friend's fam and a dead guy in the back. And Robin going down into the bunker, solving the code, not quite 'in the know' but aware enough of the danger to just accept that risk)

Heart to hearts with the besties (both about love lives)

Even the besties are paralleled (Jonathan and Steve)

Another pretty innocuous detail; they work with their bestie (Jonathan and Argyle at Surfer Boy, Robin and Steve at Scoops Ahoy) which presumably bonded them closer together. That and the horrors.

Both have gotten very quiet and can be seen being serious, but are generally the comic relief character.

Very good at problem solving and code cracking when it counts (Argyle identifying the tire tracks and Robin deciphering the code)

Some type of queer, honestly. Robin is a lesbian and just LOOK at Argyle, my gaydar goes haywire just looking at him. No certified straight would show UP like that for this little gay brother of a friend. (Yes I'm talking about the airport scene AGAIN, Argyle was a major homie)

Both queer elders, in a way. I will never shut up about the airport scene (see below) but let's chat about Robin rq. We haven't seen a Robin & Will interaction at all yet, she's a pretty new character and he's been in California most of the time she's been around. I hope we get a scene with them soon because she knows firsthand, canonically (that's important here) what being a gay kid in fucking Nowhere, Indiana is like. She would absolutely pull some Airport Scene plot to flag herself as Safe to Will, because she knows the roundabout ways you need to take with community building. One move wrong and you fuck it all up, not everyone can come out in a bathroom and win the best friend lottery. She's been seen being nervous about talking to girls, obviously, anxiety. But she's also very introspective and presumably knowledgeable about her community (despite how isolated she is). Argyle follows this up, despite not being canonically queer (also an important fact) he makes moves that only a SUPER high dude with misguided social understanding OR a gay dude attempting to back up a friend of Dorothy and SUCCEEDING would. They're both (presumably) very good at masking their outreach attempts, while maintaining a good cover.

Diff:

Argyle is quieter, most likely due to weed intake, he also promotes smoking to take the edge off. Robin is seen directly opposing drug use (see; throwing Eddie's cigarette into the lake) as a result of the horrors (see above).

Robin has been known to tease about her bestie's love life (see; you suck board) while Argyle usually acts as a hype man

For this Stargyle propaganda to work properly, we must assume Argyle has felt attraction to men, and considering how casually AND subtly he backs up Will when Mike does him dirty in the airport, I believe it. That was a protection move meant to simultaneously shame the object of ridicule, make the enemy wary of fucking with the ally AND flag Argyle as a safe person to go to when shit like that happens. Calculated and protective in a way only a queer elder could. Meanwhile, Robin is a full blown lesbian and does it very well! Also a queer elder, I'd say.

I wanna talk about them being paralleled and back up my Argyle is queer theory, because that plays a very big role in this. So far, they've been paralleled in almost everything.

Demeanor; Anxious, rambling when nervous.

Attitude; Still pretty chill regardless, determined.

Logical processing; Knock it out of the park at code solving and introspection. Despite not quite grasping social cues, can read people very well emotionally.

And Robin used all of that to hide her homosexuality, so why wouldn't Argyle? Because generally I'd say we assume Jonathan and Argyle have a thing for each other, like how Dustin assumes Robin and Steve have a thing for each other.

I will reiterate, the airport scene is a HUGE flag to me, that move was absolute queer solidarity!

It's a little different, but they're just paralleled, not twinning.

Ps: not to stereotype us, but just look at their style choices!

If that's not gay, idk WHAT IS

anyway Robin totally has a crush on Nancy, and therefore I'm fully convinced Argyle would have a crush on Steve within a HEARTBEAT

TL:DR- These two (Robin and Argyle) are paralleled. Steve and Argyle go together like Robin and Nancy, plus Queer Argyle speculation!

Holy shit concept-

Argyle acting like Robin didn't around Nancy when he's around Steve.

They're both anxious, Argyle just gets high to calm down, right? He's rambled when he's gotten freaked out, right? Well, so does Robin! Robin also does it around pretty girls so CONCEPT

The tension scene but with Steve and Argyle basically

Argyle: Me and Johnathan are totally platonic, dude

Steve, busy doing something else: Uh huh

Argyle: Yaknow, just in case that was causing any tension between us

Steve: It wasn't, but okayy

#st spoilers #wip theory #argyle stranger things #hella long post #save #ghost whispers to the void #very long theory will probably add more #but that's the dough of this pizza

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sickbromeo · 2 years ago

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i hate mike wheeler i love mike wheeler he is my worst enemy he is my best friend he is evil he is just like me he’s a shitty friend he a traumatized teenager he’s a clueless moron he doesn’t know how to handle his own emotions he’s a great friend he’s selfish he’s selfless he bases his value as a person on how much he can help others he hates himself he has zero thoughts going through his head he’s homophobic he’s gay he has internalized homophobia he’s an ally he has a savior complex he hates his family he loves his family he looks like he’s scared of dogs he needs therapy

#only i understand micheal wheeler #mike wheeler is a boy kisser #mike wheeler is gay #mike wheeler #byler tumblr #byler #stranger things #stranger things s4 #stranger things 5 #will byers #nancy wheeler

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strangeswift · 2 years ago

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hi! what are your sexuality headcanons? for byler and any other characters! :) feel free to go into depth if you'd like 💛

Yay!!! Love this.

Most of my sexuality headcanons are purely vibe based?? Call it gaydar I guess.

Team Lesbiab:

El Hopper

Barb Holland

Becky Ives

Robin Buckley obviously but that's canon

Angela

The Bisexual Squad

Max Mayfield

Lucas Sinclair

Nancy Wheeler

Jonathan Byers

Eden Bingham

Chrissy Cunningham

Vickie but that's just canon right??

Melissa <3

Carol Perkins (I ship her and Barb enemies to lovers I'm gonna write a fic and you can't stop me)

Eddie I guess? He could also be gay or straight too I don't know. Putting him here to cover my bases.

Probably Murray

Team GAY

Will Byers (canon)

Mike Wheeler (I am a gay Mike truther, primarily because "It's not my fault you don't like girls" reads as projection to me, which only makes sense if he's gay.)

Henry Creel BUT DON'T MAKE IT FUCKING WEIRD YA'LL JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

Team Straight But We Love Them Anyway

Dustin Henderson

Steve Harrington

Fred Benson (this is an unpopular opinion! But he's just straight to me idk)

Don't kill me but... Argyle. I like the idea of him being a himbo ally, like Steve but even better.

ALSO Tommy H is fuckin straight idc what his actor says. The LGBT+ community respectfully passes him back to the straights.

Anyone else I didn't name just assume I think they're straight. I didn't want to list every straight character so I just listed the interesting ones.

#asks #silly headcanons #stranger things

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palmtreepalmtree · 4 years ago

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I really want everyone feeling conflicted about celebrating right now to read this commentary from the LA Times writer Virginia Heffernan. Since it's behind a paywall, here's the thrust of it:

The great American pragmatist Richard Rorty made the case for the former in a 1995 essay. When I first read it, I resolved to heed his cautions and accept its consolations for the rest of my days. But this week I forgot that resolution.

Rorty argued that those who want to improve the world must stop seeking “membership in a movement” and instead “throw themselves into lots of campaigns.”

As movements, he cited Christianity, Marxism and nihilism. Movements are very cinematic. They deeply engage hearts, minds and Instagram. They promise infinite rewards — and require surrender and self-purification of the individual. But, Rorty wrote, movements are too amorphous to succeed or even to fail. Rather, they disperse, with some tributaries ending in a whimper, others in banality, and still others in Stalin.

Campaigns, on the other hand, don’t offer us possibilities like rebirth through Jesus Christ or the creation of Mao’s “new socialist man.” They aren’t packed with telegenic moments. Their strength, according to Rorty, is goal-oriented specificity, such as “the unionization of migrant farm workers in the American Southwest, or the banning of big trucks from the Alps, or the overthrow (by votes or force) of a corrupt government, or the legal recognition of gay marriage” — remember, it was 1995.

Best of all, campaigns have material deliverables. You know when they’re done. Losses can be notched, victories celebrated, even gloated over. By contrast, in movement politics, a campaign must always be subordinated to the Big Picture, a goal so all-encompassing that by definition it can never be fully realized.

Liberals are inveterate movement joiners. They see the promised land somewhere way, way, way off in the distance. And, even when success in a campaign seems close at hand, they brood on nothing but the infinite road ahead.

Enough with the perfect. Enough with sniveling.

As of this writing, Biden and Harris are likely to win a hard and momentous campaign, fought through the napalm clouds of Trump’s poisonous and twisted holy war. They made it a clean and excellent fight, rousing a coalition of the decent, the disciplined and the clear-eyed who had never worked with so much solidarity before. It was a campaign, not a movement. And the coalition should inspire some awe: a massive American majority.

Here’s what we know if Biden’s lead holds: In a few months Trump won’t be in office. America’s disgrace will start to fade, and its spirits will start to rebound. We won’t have to endure these loathsome people in power anymore: Bill Barr, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Don Jr., Mike Pence, Stephen Miller.

We can reenter the Paris climate agreement. Dr. Anthony Fauci will deliver the briefings on the pandemic. Our leaders will know their ABCs: Wearing masks works, systemic racism is real and the climate crisis is dire.

We won’t hear from the mainstage about how, when you think about it, white supremacy is kind of cool. Or how bleach cures COVID. Or how HunterBidenBurismaQAnon gibberish is coming for your washing machine.

We can reunite with our allies as allies and address threats from our enemies.

As I write this, more and more extraordinary implications of a Biden presidency become obvious. Are we entering paradise? Of course not. But if we recognize what nonsense is behind Trump’s desperate litigation threats, we will realize we are on the brink of closing out a very significant campaign. The one in which millions upon millions of American voters strategized, mobilized and peaceably voted out a tyrant.

I’d burst into tears of joy at the prospect, but my ex-Republican friend says wrong again.

“Spike the football. Gloat,” Windsor told me.

I don’t have a football. But if Biden prevails, I’ll blow out my sad sack “self-care” candle and open my front door and shout, “We won!” as loudly as possible into my heavily Trumpist neighborhood. I’ll turn up Aretha Franklin.

I’m just getting started.

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quinnmorgendorffer · 4 years ago

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puckert, klaine, and blunder for the ship ask meme

thank you! and ohhhh boy lol

Let’s start with Blunder - which I obviously ship way too much lol

What made you ship it?

Just the whole show? Lol I think like most people it was all of “A New Attitude” and the “SAME!” scene. It just blew my mind to see this sort of plot from a sitcom? Like, I remember the first time I saw it back in 2013 I was just so amazed they even had them have sex and everything like. God. What a TIME.

And lbr, I got so fixated on it because I just finished grad school when s5A came out and all my hyperfixations have happened when I’ve been transitioning to a new part of my life. G/lee was going into undergrad, Crazy Ex was going to grad school, etc.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

The mountains of meta I’ve written on them just…I love that they are truly same but also not-same enough to balance each other out. The fact they truly understand each other so naturally. The fact they both actually do respect each other - even if Tony truly is the better magician. The fact they are both so truly, truly DUMB in every sense of the word. Like, you know there’s the fandom thing of just referring to any characters you like as dumb and all, but they are truly, truly SO FUCKING DUMB.

And, god, in the finale when Tony goes from yelling at Sally to just smiling and speaking so softly to Gob…the ultimate dynamic of him just melting in front of this goofball is everything.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Lol I think all of us think very similarly about the two of them, right down to the sexual dynamic.

Puckurt - ship it (regretably to this day)

What made you ship it?

Honestly, it started with fanfics. I was a senior in high school during s1 (ugh if THAT doesn’t age me so fucking much…) and went on ff.net to see what people were writing and was a little surprised there was SO MUCH Puck/Kurt, since I assumed it would’ve been Kurt and Finn what with the canon crush/love Kurt had for him. And after that I just kept watching and started seeing things and this would be the best summary…

What are your favorite things about the ship?

THE PATRIOTISM. Lmfao, okay, there was this thing that literally every time they had a scene together, or even like NEAR each other, Kurt would wear stars and stripes. Like, when I ran Puckurt Week the 2nd time, it was planned purposefully over July 4th just for the Stars and Stripes theme. It’s quite possibly the best gifset I ever made lmao. Also in the “Me Against the Music” scene, everyone is coupled up in the background with canon couples - Tina/Mike, Finn/Rachel - and then Puckurt are together like WHAT EVEN.

Beyond that, they just had a lot of sweet moments people just ignored like okay, Kurt’s dad was in the hospital in a fucking coma and little sweet fucking Noah “Puck” Puckerman, knowing Kurt didn’t want to hear about people praying for his dad, FUCKING TOOK HIS NANA TO TEMPLE AND PRAYED FOR HIM SINCE HE KNEW WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO NOT HAVE A DAD AROUND!!! “MY BOY KURT!” THE BARBRA-VENTION TO STOP RACHEL’S NOSE JOB!!! THIS LAUGH!!! THE PARALLELS IN THEIR STORIES!!! “THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON, PUCKERMAN: TRUE LOVE”!!!!

And, again, I am all about the complementing dynamic. Bad boy Puck loosens up Ice Queen Kurt. The redemption of it all. Enemies to friends to lovers. God, I keep trying to make myself get over them but I know I never will.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Just the fact I still like it, probably? For what used to be the most popular Kurt ship, I’m sure it’s considered not cool to like it anymore. I mean, part of why I want to not ship it is, not just because I don’t want to be so attached to Glee, but because of what Mark Salling did/turned out to be. He’s scum and I had very much separated him from the character of Puck by the time he got arrested but STILL…

And now for the negative - I hate Klaine with a fiery passion

Why don’t you ship it?

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, and then go from there with just (some) of my complaints (all of which and more could be found here lol)

Blaine calling Kurt unsexy (while knowing Kurt has a crush on him). Blaine saying Kurt was trying too hard with “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” when he’s way more over the top. Him saying he wouldn’t go for Tony in WSS and then SINGING ONE OF TONY’S SONGS FOR THE AUDITION. Him literally PULLING KURT DOWN AND TRYING TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM WHEN KURT SAID NO REPEATEDLY Kurt and then KURT had to apologize for not being his “gay bar superstar”!!! If that was a girl, we all know people wold’ve called it out for what it was. and I cannot believe people still shipped them after that.

Then you add in how Blaine flirted REPEATEDLY with Sebastian but got mad at Kurt for texting another guy, and Blaine cheating on Kurt and getting mad that Kurt was spending time AT HIS JOB and not paying him attention? The fact that just a few weeks after he was in a gay bashing he was upset that Kurt had muscles and was seen as hot because that was his role? I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE SHIPPED THIS AND STILL SHIP THIS!! Like it seriously concerns me that people like them so much!!! I’m all for liking ships that aren’t morally okay but the fact that people who like them think they’re HEALTHY…I don’t get why they like them.

(it’s because they’re all hot for darren and used kurt as a self-insert, like, literally, that’s what all klaine fanfic turned into)

What would have made you like it?

I actually liked them at first, but I hated them by the time Blaine kissed Kurt. If they had kept with the dynamic of Blaine being this mentor/ally who helped him build his confidence…if he had stayed consistent to his “Never Been Kissed” personality, I would’ve been on board.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

They still did my favorite version ever of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and it will forever be on my Christmas playlists. And, I discussed this recently with a friend, but, honestly, “Never Been Kissed” truly was a landmark episode for television no matter what Klaine turned into and no matter how much the quality of the show went down with it.

Send me ships!

#ask meme #ship meme #thanks for asking!! sorry for the rant lol #lol klaine #oh man remember my notp tag i made for them???#notp: dead birds turn me on #otp: what you're missing out on #otp: same #I cannot believe it is 2021 and i just got that emotional over puckurt oh lord #boasamishipper #bite me in the ask #long post

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mikeshanlon · 5 years ago

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thank u for the quick summary of dc so i guess now id like to know more about the au because??? honestly ure talented and if u would write it id so read it and support it (no pressure tho!). dont let ur worms tell u NO, from what uve gathered i can tell itd be very good

okay i’m so sorry this sat in my inbox so long after the original post. i was waiting to answer it and then i got hella busy. anyways, thank you for your super kind words!!!! I’m definitely interested in doing something with this au bc it would so fun, but like. very far down the line bc i have other wips that take priority lmao. anyways super quick breakdown of some stuff myself, @stenbranlons, and @ssdenbrough, aka my lovely pals who also love IT and deadly class thought up! (mostly posting so i also dont forget this stuff LKRGNNRG)

okay first of all not every role or plot would be like..... exactly the same obviously, just getting that out of the way

so as aformentioned, richie most definitely plays the marcus role, bc absolute chaotic dumbass bisexual stoner who loves the smiths, wants to kill reagan, and is impulsive and starts lots of fights? richie to a T....

like this entire post is So Richie core to me .... So many? Oh bummer I just had my asshole freshly douched..... [The Smiths are gay] Oh do you mean brave and honest???

also like being so desperate for friends and considering them his family yeah yeah yup.......

MARCUS BEING DISGUSTINGLY STINKY AT FIRST YEAH THATS RICHIE LERKNGNREG

eddie is saya, one bc Badass!eddie who rides a motorcycle is iconic to me but also bc saya is super loyal to her family even though they are p awful to her (like literally try to kill her) but she believes she deserves it..... eddie kin....... also saya is extremely loyal to her friends and will do what she can to protect them (for instance her saving maria even though she attacked her, etc) which is v eddie kin.

also i just go insane thinking of like ~enemies~ to trusted allies to lovers reddie....... eddie bregrudingly having to watch over richie and get him out of stupid situations or else he’ll get in trouble, but ending up caring about him.....

some kin scenes include: richie being in love with eddie immediately, The Bathroom Scene (and then eddie denying there was a moment erlgkng), dumbass 1, dumbass 2, Pinkies, i can’t fucking find a gifset but the scene where marcus is like ‘it’s so obvious you want to hump on the washing machine all day and be with me forever’ and saya’s like ‘yeah no i’m here bc you got me in trouble’, also richie being like everything works out! and eddie’s like weren’t you homeless....., etc,

beverly as maria and her killing tom, her abusive bf, in vegas and also her father that is so very sexy !!!

also like . i think richie/bev would have sort of a thing after vegas but then they realize they are being really unhealthy and break it off, aka what maria and marcus should’ve done.... and she gets help

also means that eddie and beverly are best friends!!!!

(also the entire vegas ep. richie taking seven tabs of acid and eddie just holding his hand the whole time. yeah. eddie seeing richie cuddled up to beverly in the car and getting jealous yeah. richie murdering bill’s abusive dad for him yeah.)

also yeah bill is billy, tbh if u look at his playlist he has the most like Punk playlist out of all of them, also they are equally useless at flirting and shit erlgknerg. also just thinking about the scene where billy breaks down to marcus in 1.04...... lemme just say sidenote jaeden martell would’ve acted the shit out of that as well so i can see It Happening.... the small voice of richie being like what can we do..... god......

GOTH STAN. YES IT IS RIDICULOUS YES I AM A PREP!STAN WARRIOR BUT THAT IS WHY STAN BEING A GOTH AND THE PETRA OF THE AU IS THE FUNNIEST AND MOST ICONIC THING TO ME ELRKGNELRNGNERG. also richie infiltrating the dance after stan gets humiliated..... and making that billy/petra scene gay by it being bill and stan yes i love to see it! (also the part where richie is the only one to make stan laugh a la the scene on the roof in the pilot yes.....)

mike as willie just so AHHHH IT MAKES ME GO CRAZY the pacifist in a dark world of it all (and feeling like he doesn’t belong, that he’s an outsider), the feeling guilty over parent’s death of it all.... the richie and mike friendship of it all (the part where marcus kills someone for willie and the parallels of richie in canon killing henry for mike yeah.....)..... ALSO MIKE HELPING BEVERLY TRY TO RUN AWAY!!!!! YES!!!

(also the billy/petra/lex threesome but it’s stenbranlon mind of a mastermind)

we were having a hard time figuring out ben bc like..... him being in an assassin school just doesn’t fit LKNGKLRNG but we figured out he would essentially play the role of gabi, but for beverly, aka someone on the Outside who encourages her to leave king’s dominion and like. have a better life. (also beverly just having no clue that ben is flirting with her in the comic shop LKRNGLKNRGN)

other roles would be greta as brandy (richie throwing his drink in greta’s face and calling her a bigoted piece of shit yeah....), henry bowers is obviously chester/fuckface, tom as chico, pennywise as the scorpio slasher (yes, richie, bill, and eddie walk around a muderous clown on a leash around the streets of san francisco, getting him its-its, etc.) idk who the fuck master lin would be tbh but erlgnreg

#ask #anon #it dc au #it #okay yeah this is so entirely late but LKNGLKNRGLKNRG #why does tumblr keep deleting random portions of my answer?1?1?1

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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years ago

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TAYLOR SWIFT - YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN

[3.65]

The one that's on our mind, 365, all the time...

Will Rivitz: The Singles Jukebox -- Corrections, June 21 2019: The author of this blurb has previously stated that the selection of Meghan Trainor as LA Pride headliner would forever be the nadir of Pride-related programming. The author regrets the error. [1]

Joshua Copperman: The discourse for "ME!": "What does this mean for Taylor's next era?" The discourse for this lyrical clusterfuck: "What does this mean at all?" It's a much more interesting production, without stock horns and with some nice "Royals"-y vocal layering, but it's the most incoherent thing she's ever released. Is it about stans? Is it about homophobes? Is it a coming out song? Did Taylor throw the first shade at Stonewall? What is HAPPENING?? I'm sorry, I need to calm down. [3]

Will Adams: Taylor said "Gay Rights!" Kind of! Sort of. Well... it's complicated. Not necessarily because of her status as a cis straight woman, but because the message itself is so damn muddled. Stans and trolls and bigots and music journalists are lumped in the same mass of "haters," and while it's worth noting that this by no means the first anti-haters pop song to exist, the overt political text here results in lots of crossed wires. The song suffers as a result too, throwing half-formed catchphrases at the wall to see what sticks: the chorus is a melodic void (odd considering Taylor's songwriting strength); the "gowns" reference is too subtle to register; the patter results in odd scansion throughout ("like it's PUH-trón"); and "snakes and stones never broke my bones" is no more clever than "don't need opinions from a shellfish or a sheep." Speaking of Katy, also wrapped up in all this is a resolution of a beef that never seemed that important except as something for either party to mine for big single launches. It's all too much, especially for a not-bad track that fizzes just fine on its own. It'd be churlish to ask Taylor to take her own advice; for now all I ask for is coherence. [4]

Jonathan Bradley: Taylor Swift has always had a talent for deploying sharp and piquant phrases, the sorts of lyrics that tell blunt little stories like animated gifs. It's an opportunity for her to go broad and get funny: "Some indie record that's much cooler than mine," for instance, or "I can make the bad guys good for a weekend," or "I don't love the drama, it loves me." "You Need to Calm Down" is like an entire song built from these lines, and it whirls by like a Twitter thread or an Instagram story. Taylor sass is a lot of fun, and many of these ripostes are satisfyingly catty in their insouciance ("I'm just like, 'hey... are you OK?'" might be the best of these). Swift has shrugged off detractors on "Shake It Off" and "Mean," but she is more single-minded this time, and that focus paradoxically dilutes the intent. Swift's greatest strength as a songwriter is her interiority; she's adept at examining and interpreting her own feelings. But a consequence of that is that she is far less certain when she needs to step outside the bounds of her own head. The worst song she has ever released was a charity single called "Ronan," in which Swift sung in the voice of a mother who had lost her child to cancer; so talented at realizing her personal traumas, she proved incapable of reconstructing her sympathy for that bereavement in her own voice. "Calm Down" has some things to say about homophobia, and in this terrain outside her own experience, Swift's words are not so much unpleasant as awkward and a bit superficial, particularly in their uncertain invocation of "shade" as bigotry. (If stan theorists needed evidence that Swift is indeed as straight as she publicly presents, it's here: a queer Taylor would not have written a second verse as disengaged as that one.) But even diluted, Swift singles are still constructed tight. This one continues finding the pastel inversion of Reputation's skeletal synth sound, and echoes "ME!" with a hook of vowel sounds as palilalia -- "oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh..." this time, rather than "me-hee-hee." It's a tic that works -- in moderation. [7]

Alex Clifton: (Puts on music critic hat) It's stronger than "ME!" (which isn't hard but worth noting), I'm glad she takes swipes at homophobia but equating that with personal shots is a little bit weird, it's super catchy but the lyrics are still a little lacking, and I still can't remember all the words even though I have the melody memorized. (Takes off music critic hat, puts on bisexual Swiftie stan hat) EVERYTHING IS RAINBOWS AND MY BRAIN WON'T STOP SINGING THIS AND I WOULD MARRY TAYLOR SWIFT, HAPPY PRIDE!!!!! [5]

Alfred Soto: I'm sure it will sound fine on the radio, especially played beside "Bad Guy" and "Old Town Road." The maximalist intentions behind the Everest-sized synth bass and her rat-tat-tat delivery bespeak a mind that recognizes it's the one needing calm. Except for the "parade" line, I wouldn't have known this alludes to Pride if I hadn't watched the video. I don't feel pandered to as a queer man because, after all, a Pride parade is superficial performativity anyway. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Give her this: the stacked-up arpeggio in the chorus is an absolutely brilliant hook, particularly the second time when it goes over the top. The rapid-fire prechorus is pretty good too. But the beat is the same freezer-burned "Paper Planes"/"With Ur Love"/"Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" chill, the accents are so far from the right syllables they've filed a misSING perSONS REport, the conflating of trolls with professional critics with the literal Westboro Baptist Church is bad (as is the weird class shit in the video, as if you can't be anti-gay and present like a Pleasantville star), and all this was done much better on "Mean." [5]

Katie Gill: In a way, this song is hellishly brilliant. Taylor Swift has provided her standom with a weapon, something that they can wield against any form of criticism. Want to write an article criticizing the fact that Swift seems to put "homophobia" and "me having internet bullies" on the same level, the fact that the video tactlessly paints rural Americana as the enemy of LGBTQ+ people instead of the Mike Pences of the world, or the fact that the second verse leans way too close to the sort of tactlessness that only aggressively woke allies can pull off? Expect a flock of Twitter replies telling you condescendingly that "you need to calm down" and "you're being too loud," as people ignore the half-assed condemnation of standom during the song's third verse in favor of using Swift's lyrics as a cudgel against any perceived haters. For all that Swift is trying to shed the sneaky snake image, traces of it still linger between the lines. [3]

Edward Okulicz: The people who said "Heartbeats" by The Knife was the future of music were right in 2003, and based on this, have now been right for 16 years and counting. That enormous synth-bass takes a song that should have been awful on paper (ugh, a thematic sequel to "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," which itself is why we can't have nice things, like good Taylor Swift songs), with the second verse featuring the worst lyrics Swift has ever written, and makes it frisky and playful. The "uh-oh uh-oh UH-OH!" hook is legitimately her best in years. Obsessing about someone is tedious, obsessing about those people is even more tedious, but for once, Swift sounds like she's legitimately above it, even if I don't think she knows what "shade" is. I wanted to hate this for its posturing, but I can't, because of the "uh-oh" bit. But just between you and me, I liked Katy Perry's last single more. [6]

William John: I'm always happy to hear songs that approximate the "Heartbeats" melody, and the layered vocals here sound lovely, but Dorian Corey didn't keep a mummy in her house for fifteen years for "shade" to be misinterpreted so flagrantly. [3]

Danilo Bortoli: Is it fair to demand political accountability from artists? The question remains thorny these days, but when Taylor Swift blatantly goes after pink money, the answer is yes, loud and clear. The case made for "You Need To Calm Down" has pulled the identity politics card (as usual, The Onion put it better). That is, Swift's song oversimplifies an ancient struggle for recognition, making up a narrative that isn't Taylor's to call her own. But what is more infuriating is the sugarcoating: the fact that pride should come only from within, and the naive and painful suggestion that a homophobe would go silent after a line as awful as "shade never made anybody less gay". That is to say, when it comes to protest, I prefer it the French way. Which is why all of this begs the question: Would you tell Richard Spencer to "calm down"? No, of course you wouldn't. [2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There are probably 2300 words elsewhere in this post about the politics and rhetoric of Taylor's words here (and I'll get to that), but first I feel obligated to talk about how "You Need To Calm Down" works on a purely musical level. It sounds like ass. It takes the bag of tricks that Swift used on "Ready For It?," the most musically captivating of Reputation's singles, and sands off all of their weird edges. Yes, there's a bass thump to welcome you in, but without the distortion it just sounds like Taylor's doing "Royals"-lite (I mean, Joel Little did produce.) And with the fangs off the verse, the lift to the chorus fails to land. It's all just sound, an undifferentiated, imperial wave of midtempo banger signifier without a real hook. Even Swift's vocals, which have always been her most compelling tool, can't sell the song's vibe -- she's confused not giving a fuck for calm. Of course, it's not entirely clear what "You Need To Calm Down"'s vibe, or point, even is. It's trying to be clever, with its winking references to stale LGBTQ and feminist symbology, but by conflating (or at least juxtaposing) those struggles with the problems that Taylor Swift has as a widely hated famous person, it ends up saying nothing at all. In the end, "You Need To Calm Down" is less a coherent song in itself than a Potemkin village to situate endless thinkpieces in. Make it stop. [3]

Ashley Bardhan: I know the title is "You Need To Calm Down" but there are no human words that can aptly describe how much I hate this song. Think of a young pigeon cooing as it flies through a fish market, weaving over and through the glistening crates of silver-scaled fish and ice. Oh no! There's a problem with a shipment! The owner angrily tosses a fat fish into the air, and its scales glint as it smacks the pigeon mid-air and onto the ground with the full brunt of its weight. The pigeon sees the fish market, its final flight, behind its closed eyes in a hurried blur. It weakly wheezes its final birdsong, and then... nothing. Yaaas, hunty. [0]

Iris Xie: 🤷 This is so tired, I can't even be that mad about it. The only question I have, because this song and MV isn't even worth a QTPOC-centered thinkpiece from me is this: when is the Post Malone + Swae Lee + Taylor Swift collaboration happening? This sounds so much like "Sunflower" and is just as deadening. Even the excitement of one of my besties sending me an ~*urgent*~ text message about Katy Perry and Taylor Swift making up over their imaginary feud, once they realized it hurt both of their fanbases, can't even ignite an ounce of care from me. (Bless your heart, my dear friend.) If she really wanted to pander to the gays, she could've just written a sequel to "Look What You Made Me Do" and become a slicker conduit for the less graceful parts about being in queer scenes, which can be about petty, messy drama, rather than being the subject of rage and apathy about being another harbinger of happy happy HAPPY gaypropriation. Like, whatever, she can have her extremely meaningless self-declared ally medal. I've been calm, just give me actual music. [2]

Isabel Cole: It's like this: A while ago I was catching up with an ex who mentioned he'd recently come back into contact with someone we'd known in high school -- acquaintance of his, frenemy of mine, a few sparkling months of giggling BFF-ship deteriorating across a year I spent defending her while she shit-talked my fashion sense in the girls' room to the local blabbermouth -- and he told me, with an ironic arch of the brow, that when my name had inevitably come up she'd said, "Isabel and I used to be so close; I wonder what happened." Reader, I spent like a week losing my mind, repeating the story and relitigating the history to anyone who would listen while bitterly making fun of her internet presence. Was this because I am petty and emotionally volatile? Yes. But it was also because there is a certain level of willful detachment from reality which I do not have the cognitive capacity to process adequately. Taylor Swift having the gall to tell any human on earth to calm down makes me feel insane the way it makes me feel insane to see someone citing as evidence of their incurable adolescent unpopularity the dorky AIM screenname they picked based on an affectionate joke I made. Taylor Swift saying "take several seats" makes me feel the same combination of spiteful and enraged as reading a line recycled from Livejournal in 2005: please learn like everyone else to disguise the extent to which the human brain is a machine wired to seek validation, the transparency of your desperation is making all of us uncomfortable! God, I wanna snub her in a lunchroom so bad. The song is unappealing in ways that barely merit mentioning -- verses that sound like they were reverse-engineered from a MIDI file of the superior but hardly sublime "Gorgeous," chorus that throws in the plodding piano of roaring bravery -- but even beyond the equivalency it implies between Twitter making fun of her and, like, hate crimes, I find the bridge particularly embarrassing, because of how artlessly it reveals its origin: Taylor Swift literally read a Tumblr post (or, the algorithm we call Taylor Swift processed several hundred Tumblr posts) from 2011 saying "stop pitting female artists against each other [handclap emoji etc.]!!!!!!!!!!!" and thought, Wow! Feminism! As for the possibility that this is another masterful turn from Taylor the troll (or troll!Taylor as there is a distressingly high chance she'd say) and by falling for it I've let her win: (1) Taylor Swift is always already winning, this is exactly what Marx was talking about (2) Let me kick it back to my ex one more time: when I asked what she was like these days, he considered and said: "I thought she'd developed self-awareness, but then I realized it was just self-identification." Yeah. [1]

Scott Mildenhall: You know sometimes, when you read the annotations on genius.com, how their deductions and inferences appear to have been made by algorithm? For instance, the notion that this being released on that loud American guy's birthday "seems to support the theory" that one line is about him? This is what would happen if that algorithm was tasked with writing a satirical song. [5]

Stephen Eisermann: My take? This is more lazy allyship than commercialization of pride. Plus, it's kind of a bop. Sucks, then, that Taylor completely misunderstands what shade is -- but did we really expect any better? [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Taylor Swift #pop #music #music review #writing

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ireadyabooks · 6 years ago

Text

New Year, New Books!

Happy 2019, book nerds! Now that we’ve cleaned up the confetti from New Year’s Eve, it’s time to get serious about some resolutions: reading as many books as we possibly can in 2019!

If your TBR pile needs some love, we’ve got you covered. Here are some of our faves coming your way in early 2019!

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

Available January 29th

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali has always been fascinated by the universe around her and the laws of physics that keep everything in order. But her life at home isn't so absolute. Unable to come out to her conservative Muslim parents, she keeps that part of her identity hidden. And that means keeping her girlfriend, Ariana, a secret from them too. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life at home and a fresh start at Caltech in the fall. But when Rukhsana's mom catches her and Ariana together, her future begins to collapse around her. Devastated and confused, Rukhsana's parents whisk her off to stay with their extended family in Bangladesh where, along with the loving arms of her grandmother and cousins, she is met with a world of arranged marriages, religious tradition, and intolerance. Fortunately, Rukhsana finds allies along the way and, through reading her grandmother's old diary, finds the courage to take control of her future and fight for her love.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

Spin

Available January 29th

Even in murder, the music lives on. When rising star Paris Secord (aka DJ ParSec) is found dead on her turntables, it sends the local music scene reeling. No one is feeling that grief more than her shunned pre-fame best friend, Kya, and ParSec's chief groupie, Fuse -- two sworn enemies who happened to be the ones who discovered her body. The police have few leads, and when the trail quickly turns cold, the authorities don't seem to be pushing too hard to investigate further. But nobody counted on Paris's deeply loyal fans, ParSec Nation, or the outrage that would drive Fuse and Kya to work together. As ParSec Nation takes to social media and the streets in their crusade for justice, Fuse and Kya start digging into Paris's past, stumbling across a deadly secret. With new info comes new motives. New suspects. And a fandom that will stop at nothing in their obsessive quest for answers, not even murder...

Amazon

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IndieBound

The Deceiver’s Heart

Available February 26th

In this sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller The Traitor's Game, Kestra Dallisor has finally gained possession of the Olden Blade. With the dagger in her control, she attempts to destroy the tyrannical Lord Endrick. But when Kestra fails, the king strips her of her memory, and leaves her weak and uncertain, bound to obey him. Heartbroken, Simon is desperate to return Kestra to the rebel she was, but refuses to use magic to heal her. With untrusting Coracks and Halderians threatening to capture and kill her, and war looming on the horizon, Kestra and Simon will have to learn to trust each other again if they have any hope of surviving. But can a heart once broken ever be healed?

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

The Music of What Happens

Available February 26th

Max: Chill. Sports. Video games. Gay and not a big deal, not to him, not to his mom, not to his buddies. And a secret: An encounter with an older kid that makes it hard to breathe, one that he doesn't want to think about, ever. Jordan: The opposite of chill. Poetry. His "wives" and the Chandler Mall. Never been kissed and searching for Mr. Right, who probably won't like him anyway. And a secret: A spiraling out of control mother, and the knowledge that he's the only one who can keep the family from falling apart. Throw in a rickety, 1980s-era food truck called Coq Au Vinny. Add in prickly pears, cloud eggs, and a murky idea of what's considered locally sourced and organic. Place it all in Mesa, Arizona, in June, where the temp regularly hits 114. And top it off with a touch of undeniable chemistry between utter opposites. Over the course of one summer, two boys will have to face their biggest fears and decide what they're willing to risk -- to get the thing they want the most.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

Pretend She’s Here

Available February 26th

Emily Lonergan's best friend died last year. And Emily hasn't stopped grieving. Lizzie Porter was lively, loud, and fun -- Emily's better half. Emily can't accept that she's gone. When Lizzie's parents and her sister come back to town to visit, Emily's heartened to see them. The Porters understand her pain. They miss Lizzie desperately, too. Desperately enough to do something crazy. Something unthinkable. Suddenly, Emily's life is hurtling toward a very dark place -- and she's not sure she'll ever be able to return to what she once knew was real.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

Last of Her Name

Available February 26th

Sixteen years ago, rebellion swept the galaxy known as the Belt of Jewels. Every member of the Leonov royal family was murdered--down to their youngest child, Princess Anya--making way for the Union government to seize power. But Stacia doesn't think much about politics. She spends her days half-wild, rambling her father's vineyard with her friends, Clio and Pol. That all changes when a Union ship appears burning through the sky, bearing the leader of the Union, the Direktor Eminent himself, who declares that Stacia's sleepy village is a den of empire loyalists. Even more shocking, the Direktor claims that Princess Anya Leonova is alive--and Stacia is the lost princess As their home explodes into chaos, Pol smuggles Stacia to a hidden escape ship, leaving Clio in the hands of the Union. With everything she knows threading away into the stars, Stacia sets her heart on a single mission: She will find and rescue Clio, even with the whole galaxy on her trail.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

IndieBound

That’s Not What I Heard

Available February 26th

What did you hear? Kimberly Landis-Lilley and Teddy Lin are over. Yes, the Kim and Teddy broke up. At least that's what Phil Spooner thinks he overheard and then told Jess Howard, Kim's best friend. Something about Teddy not liking Kim's Instas? Or was it that Teddy is moving to Italy and didn't want to do long distance? Or that Kim slid into someone else's DMs? Jess told her boyfriend, Elvis, that he needs to be on Kim's side. Especially if he wants to keep her as his girlfriend. But Elvis is also Teddy's best friend. Now, Kim's run out of school for the day. Jess is furious. Elvis is confused. And half the lunch period won't talk to Teddy. Even the teachers have taken sides. William Henry Harrison High will never be the same again!

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Tell Me Everything

Available February 26th

Your secret's safe...until it's not. Ivy's always preferred to lay low, unlike her best friend Harold, who has taken up a hundred activities as sophomore year begins. But Ivy has her own distraction: the new anonymous art-sharing app, VEIL. Being on the sidelines has made Ivy a skilled observer, and soon she discovers that some of the anonymous posters are actually her classmates. While she's still too scared to put her own creations on the app, Ivy realizes that she can contribute in an even better way -- by making gifts for the artists she's discovered. The acts of kindness give her such a rush that, when Ivy suspects Harold is keeping a secret, she decides to go all in. Forget gifts -- Harold needs a major party. But when her good intentions thrust her into the spotlight, Ivy's carefully curated world is thrown into chaos. Now she has to find the courage to stand out... or risk losing everything and everyone she loves most.

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Mike

Available February 26th

Mike is the imaginary friend and projection of a repressed wish that won’t go away until Floyd confronts both his greatest fear and greatest desire: to succeed. MEET FLOYD. He's a tennis star. Possibly good enough to win Wimbledon one day. MEET MIKE. He's... different. Apart from anything else, Floyd seems to be the only one who can see him. But Mike must have appeared for a reason. And finding out why is perhaps the most important thing Floyd will ever do...

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IndieBound

Sorry Not Sorry

Available February 26th

Janelle and Alyssa used to be friends. Best friends. They knew each other's deepest secrets and went through the hardest times together. But that was then. Now? Their status is somewhere between frenemies and full-on rivals. Janelle is all about making a difference in her community, while Alyssa reigns over the shallowest girls in school. Until the day Alyssa collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Suddenly, everyone knows about her declining health and race against time. And, in a stunning twist of fate, the only person who might be able to save Alyssa's life -- is Janelle. But will the girls' bitter past get in the way of their futures?

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Brawler

Available March 26th

Eddie MacIntyre--Mac to a handful of friends--is Pennsylvania's most promising wrestler. His future is bright with scholarship offers and the dream of helping his struggling mom. But then comes a fateful match at the state championship, when his famous rage consumes him and he assaults a referee. In an instant, Mac loses all he and his mom have worked to build since his abusive father was locked up years ago. Facing arrest, Mac runs away to another town, where he is taken in by a shady promoter who has followed his career. He recruits Mac into Brawlers, an illegal underground fighting ring run by a gangland boss. This is a bloodsport that has no rules . . . but offers plenty of reward. Mac teams up with Khajee, a girl with the fighting skills he'll need to learn to survive . . . and her own dark past tying her to the head of the ring. Together the two must figure out their place in a world that hasn't been kind to them . . . and forge a future that could be.

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IndieBound

Quarantine: A Love Story

Available March 26th

Oliver wants a girlfriend, and there's a girl back home who might be interested in him. The problem is, he has to spend his spring break on a volunteer trip in the Dominican Republic. Flora, on the other hand, isn't really looking for a boyfriend. She just wants to end a miserable spring break visiting her dad and her new stepmom in the D.R. The solution to both their problems? Get back home to New York ASAP. Sadly, they won't be getting there anytime soon. Their hopes are dashed when Flora's impulsiveness lands them in quarantine -- just the two of them. Now, the two teens must come together in order to survive life in a bubble for 30 days. In that time, love will bloom. But is it the real thing, or just a placebo effect?

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I Don’t Want To Be Crazy

Available March 26th

This is a true story of growing up, breaking down, and coming to grips with a psychological disorder. When Samantha Schutz first left home for college, she was excited by the possibilities -- freedom from parents, freedom from a boyfriend who was reckless with her affections, freedom from the person she was supposed to be. At first, she reveled in the independence . . . but as pressures increased, she began to suffer anxiety attacks that would leave her mentally shaken and physically incapacitated. Thus began a hard road of discovery and coping, powerfully rendered in this poetry memoir.

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Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book?

Available March 26th

Have you always wanted to write a book, but don't know where to start? Or maybe you're really great at writing the first few chapters . . . but you never quite make it to the end? Or do you finally have a finished manuscript, but you're not sure what to do next? Fear not -- if you have writing-related questions, this book has answers! Whether you're writing for fun or to build a career, bestselling author Ally Carter is ready to help you make your work shine. With honesty, encouragement, and humor, Ally's ready here to answer the questions that writers struggle with the most. Filled with practical tips and helpful advice, Dear Ally is a treasure for aspiring writers at any stage of their careers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how books get made, from idea to publication, and gives you insight into the writing processes of some of the biggest and most talented YA authors writing today.

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#I read YA #booklr #book love #young adult lit #diverse reads #books #bookworm #bookish #book nerd #new books #reading

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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8chan, Trump, voter suppression: how white supremacy went mainstream in the US

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/11/el-paso-shooting-white-supremacy-8chan-voter-suppression?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Post_to_Tumblr

"In many ways, the Republican party has been preparing for minority rule for years now. The anxiety that drove the shooter in El Paso, as well as every other white supremacist mass shooter in recent years, has motivated Republican politicians to steadily demonize and disenfranchise populations that don’t vote for them. The problem long predates Donald Trump, but he’s given taken both the mask and the leash off of it."

8chan, Trump, Voter Suppression: How White Supremacy Went Mainstream In The US

The same anxiety that drives white supremacists has motivated Republicans to disenfranchise populations that don’t vote for them

By Luke Darby | Published:02:00 Sun August 11, 2019 | The Guardian | Posted August 11, 2019 7:54 PM ET |

Before he opened fire on an El Paso, Texas shopping center, killing 22 people and injuring dozens more, the accused gunman, Patrick Crusius, allegedly posted a manifesto online explicitly stating his motivation: he was trying to stop a “Hispanic invasion of Texas”. In April, another shooter attacked a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one woman and wounding three other people. In his a “manifesto” attributed to him, he claimed he was responding to the “meticulously planned genocide of the European race”.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 2018, still another shooter attacked a synagogue that he chose deliberately because the congregation helped with refugee relocation. He wrote online that they were trying to “bring invaders in that kill our people”. The man who murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier this year, called immigration an “assault on the European people”..

All of these shooters were obsessed with the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, sometimes referred to as “white genocide”. It’s the idea that shadowy elites – usually Jewish, almost always liberal – are orchestrating the destruction of white culture through demographic change. The theory goes that white culture will be eroded mainly through migration and birthrates: more people of color are arriving in majority white counties, the ones already there are having more and more babies, and birthrates are declining for the soon-to-be-oppressed white people.

But the fans of this theory, and the idea of a demographic threat to a white (male) hierarchical structure, are no longer the preserve of extremists that lurk in the netherworlds of the internet. White supremacy, and the ideas and motivations that drive it, are flourishing in plain sight in the US.

Most notoriously, Donald Trump has become a fan of “great replacement” talking points. In the last week many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have called the president a white supremacist. But Trump is far from being alone, and in recent years the idea has caught fire among more and more mainstream Republicans. The looming threat of their losing political influence permeates every move the party has made for decades.

Anxiety about racial decline has a long past, but this specific modern version of it comes from the French writer Renaud Camus, who was known in the 80s as a pioneering gay novelist. He coined the phrase “great replacement” in a 2011 book of the same name, articulating the conspiratorial idea that black and brown migrants are invading Europe to destroy white culture.

It’s a weird path that takes the ideas of a race-obsessed French novelist into the Trump White House, but it has been helped along by Rupert Murdoch’s pugilistic network, Fox News. One of the network’s standout hosts, Tucker Carlson, is probably the most clear-cut example: in August 2018, he dedicated a segment of his show to a story about black gangs killing white farmers in South Africa and the government then seizing their land. It’s a widely shared rumor online, popular with white nationalists because it seemed like an example of a government literally committing white genocide, but there’s no evidence that it is true. Carlson ultimately retracted the story, but not before Trump tweeted that he was directing the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to investigate.

Even when Carlson’s show isn’t clearly cribbing notes from white nationalist forums, he’s promoting their ideas in slightly more coded ways. He has railed against diversity, asking rhetorically: “How exactly is diversity our strength?” In 2018 he complained about demographic change in the US, saying: “This is more change than human beings are designed to digest,” and adding: “Our leaders are for diversity, just not where they live.” Andrew Anglin, who founded the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, has called Carlson “literally our greatest ally”. After Carlson’s South Africa segment, Anglin said Tucker Carlson Tonight is “basically Daily Stormer: The Show.”

Experts in white supremacist thought largely agree that Trump is actively spreading the ideas that underpin this ideology. Christian Picciolini, US author of Memoirs of a Skinhead and former neo-Nazi who set up Life After Hate, a not-for-profit that aims to deradicalize extremists, said: “Donald Trump is using nearly identical language to what white supremacist movement language is, language that I used 30 years ago in lyrics and in promoting white supremacist ideology.”

Alexandra Minna Stern, professor on the history of eugenics and author of Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination, said: “The way I describe it is that President Trump has really set up a baseline for bigotry in political discourse in the United States that has helped create the terrain where this is more possible.”

And other frontline Republicans are following Trump’s lead. In 2017, the Iowa congressman and standard-bearer of the far right Steve King tweeted: “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” In a 2018 interview with an extreme rightwing propaganda site in Austria, King proved he was fluent in white nationalist tropes, saying: “If we don’t defend western civilization, then we will become subjugated by the people who are the enemies of faith, the enemies of justice.”

The rise of white supremacy is being driven in part by demographic change – although racism has flourished in the US long before whites were in sight of losing their position as the majority. The US census predicts that by 2050 white people will no longer be the majority in the country. A Census Bureau report from 2015 predicted that by the time the 2020 census is conducted, more than half of American school children will be non-white, meaning that “majority minority” future will be baked in unless something drastic changes it.

White people will still be the the largest demographic, they will no longer be in a majority. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, the number of white adults who believe “a majority non-white population will weaken American culture” is 46%.

Things look even worse if you are a Republican politician. Decades of playing to white grievances plus years of relentlessly maligning the first black president have stymied their ability to win support from non-white voters. After 2012, when Mitt Romney failed to even come close to unseating then president Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned a so-called “autopsy report” that predicted doom if the party couldn’t right itself: “America is changing demographically, and unless Republicans are able to grow our appeal the way GOP governors have done, the changes tilt the playing field even more in the Democratic direction. If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to engage them and show our sincerity.”

That hasn’t happened. Instead of trying to peel off voters who typical side with Democrats – women, minorities, moderates – Republicans have aggressively focused on making sure people who aren’t likely to vote for them don’t vote at all. In the US voter suppression – the act of denying the vote to minority and poor communities who are likely to be Democratic supporters – is thriving. In the last decade, 33 million people have been purged from voter rolls across the country – predominantly in districts with large percentages of non-white voters. In 2013, the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The state of North Carolina passed voter suppression laws so flagrant that the federal court said they targeted black voters with “almost surgical precision”.

Last year voters in Florida overwhelmingly chose to re-enfranchise 1.5 million people with felony convictions; after the vote the state legislature chose to add a requirement that none of those ex-felons can vote until they repay all court fees, effectively bringing back the poll tax which restricted voting among minority groups for decades.

Carole Anderson, academic and author of last year’s One Person, No Vote and a leading figure in the fight against voter suppression, wrote in the Guardian last week about the 33 million Americans purged from the voting rolls. “To put this in perspective, that is the equivalent of the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Phoenix and Dallas, as well as the states of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Idaho. Not surprisingly, these massive removals are concentrated in precincts that tend to have higher minority populations and vote Democratic. Similarly, other voter suppression techniques, such as poll closures, deliberate long lines on election day, voter ID laws and extreme partisan gerrymandering all weigh disproportionately on minorities and urban areas.”

Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now

Paul Weyrich

Voter suppression isn’t necessarily a new tactic. In a 1980 speech to fellow conservatives, Paul Weyrich, one of the men who helped found arch-conservative institutions such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation, said: “I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

What has changed is the demographic projections. And if Republicans can’t compete in the new electoral landscape, then it is in their best interest to freeze the official electorate in place. One way to achieve this is partisan gerrymandering, redrawing voting districts so that they’re easier for Republicans to win. Incredibly, the supreme court in June ruled that federal courts were powerless to hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering – even in a case in which the party that controls the state legislature draws voting maps to explicitly elect its candidates.

In an excoriating dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan and the supreme court’s liberal justices accused the court’s majority of shirking its constitutional duty. “The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs and to choose their political representatives.

“The partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people. If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government.

Of all times to abandon the court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one.”

Even in terms of raw numbers, the Republicans are at a disadvantage. There are 12 million more registered Democrats than Republicans in the US, but Republican control of the federal government is almost absolute. In part, that’s because institutions such as the electoral college and the Senate itself are wildly undemocratic, in the sense that both are structured so that one party can claim victory without actually receiving the most votes. In 2016, Democratic senators won 6m more votes than Republican ones, yet Republicans firmly held their majority.

The Senate distributes two seats a state, meaning that states with large multiracial populations and more Democratic voters (California, Texas, New York) get exactly the same representation as those populated by older – and often Republican – white people. As Jamelle Bouie noted in the New York Times: “Today, the largest state is California, with nearly 40 million residents, and the smallest is Wyoming, with just under 600,000 people, a disparity that gives a person in Wyoming 67 times the voting power of one in California.

“As it stands now, the Senate is highly undemocratic and strikingly unrepresentative, with an affluent membership composed mostly of white men, who are about 30% of the population but hold 71 of the seats. Under current demographic trends this will get worse, as whites become a plurality of all Americans but remain a majority in most states.”

And while elected officials can at least – in theory, and with ever-greater difficulty – be voted out of office, that is not the case for the justices on the supreme court who wield extraordinary power, as the recent partisan gerrymandering case reveals. Trump has so far appointed two supreme court justices.

Law professor Ian Samuel explained, in relation to Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation – Trump’s first appointment – that it was the first time “a president who lost the popular vote had a supreme court nominee confirmed by senators who received fewer votes – nearly 22m fewer – than the senators that voted against him”.

For his second pick, Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s choice to replace the moderate Anthony Kennedy, the senators who voted against him represented 38 million more people than the ones who voted to confirm.

In many ways, the Republican party has been preparing for minority rule for years now. The anxiety that drove the shooter in El Paso, as well as every other white supremacist mass shooter in recent years, has motivated Republican politicians to steadily demonize and disenfranchise populations that don’t vote for them. The problem long predates Donald Trump, but he’s given taken both the mask and the leash off of it.

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kiwigreenflame · 6 years ago

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It’s been a while since the Top 10 religion and comics installments, and I’ve been meaning to post a number of other comics that didn’t make it into that list but are still worth mentioning in passing. No commentary on these apart from the official blurbs. As always, YMMV reading these.

Testament

Creators: Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp Publisher: Vertigo (DC Comics) Date: 2006-2008

From the imagination of best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff, one of the most iconoclastic and acclaimed minds of our era, comes a graphic novel series that exposes the “real” Bible as it was actually written, and reveals how its mythic tales are repeated today. Grad student Jake Stern leads an underground band of renegades that uses any means necessary to combat the frightening threats to freedom that permeate the world. They employ technology, alchemy, media hacking and mysticism to fight a modern threat that has its roots in ancient stories destined to recur in the modern age.

Chosen (American Jesus)

Creators: Mark Millar & Peter Gross Publisher: Image Comics Date: 2009

From the writer of the Universal hit, Wanted, comes his next graphic novel on the way to becoming a feature film! American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen follows a twelve-year-old boy who suddenly discovers he’s returned as Jesus Christ. He can turn water into wine, make the crippled walk, and, perhaps, even raise the dead! How will he deal with the destiny to lead the world in a conflict thousands of years in the making?

The 99

Creators: Naif Al-Mutawa Publisher: Teshkeel Comics Date: 2007-2014

Young heroes gain superhuman abilities when they bond with 99 powerful gemstones. These Noor Stones were forged from the destruction of ancient Baghdad to preserve the wisdom of the ages, and were lost for centuries, but they are being found, one-by-one…

Vampirella Strikes

Creators: Tom Sniegoski & Johnny D. Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Date: 2013

For years, the raven-haired heroine Vampirella has hunted the world’s supernatural threats, all the while fighting back her own bloodthirsty nature. After a night out in Boston leads to particularly brutal violence, she seeks comfort in her Brownstone home… but discovers the most unexpected surprise of all. Angels have been sent to her by God — and they come asking for help! Enter Janus, a former soldier in the legion of Heaven, who skirts the line between the damned and divine. Only a fallen angel can navigate Vampirella through the seedy, demon-run underworld, where she hopes to find the source of an addictive, body-altering drug derived from archangel blood. Will Vampirella’s mission redeem her… or will she uncover secrets so shocking that their discovery will damn her forever?

Loaded Bible: Jesus vs. Vampires

Creators: Tim Seeley, Nate Bellegarde & Mark Englert Publisher: Image Comics Date: 2006-2008

In the near future, nuclear Holy War has decimated North America and humanity’s last stronghold is the dome metropolis of New Vatican City. When vampires attack, the Church turns to a clone of Jesus Christ Himself to protect them! But all is not as it seems for the Test Tube Messiah, as he’s drawn into a web of betrayal, bloodshed, and seduction!

The Sisterhood

Creators: Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Wellinton Alves, & Andrew Dalhouse. Publisher: Archaia (BOOM! Studies imprint) Date: 2008

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre is an elite group of specially trained nuns, the world’s most powerful exorcists. But they don’t just get rid of the demons they exorcise…the Sisters draw the demons into themselves, using their own bodies as cages of flesh. If they die a natural death, the demons die with them, small pieces of the world’s evil gone forever. But if the Sisters should dies violently…the demons are released into the world again!

Now someone has sent assassins to kill the oldest of the sisters, releasing the captive demons out into the world. Eden Parish is assigned the task of discovering who is behind this massacre, and why. In her journey she will uncover dark secrets about the Order, and about their enemies. And the real reason behind all this murder.

Blankets

Creators: Craig Thompson Publisher: Top Shelf Productions Date: 2003

Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson’s poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.

Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It’s a universal story, and Thompson’s vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.

This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts.

A Contract with God and other Tenement Stories

Creator: Will Eisner Date: 1978

This semi-autobiographical work captures with pen and ink the drama of the city and its all-too-human inhabitants. Set in the same Bronx neighborhood as later works Dropsie Avenue and A Life Force, the four stories that comprise the book – “A Contract With God��,”The Street Singer”, “The Super” and “Cookalein” – examine the world of immigrant life in New York City in the 1930s with a unique look at the emotion and character of its denizens.

Warrior Nun Areala

Creator: Ben Dunn Publisher: Antarctic Press Date: 1994-2002

Follows the exploits of Sister Shannon Masters who is part of a militant Catholic organisation, the Order of the Cruciform Sword, who protect Church and world from supernatural threats. Plays fast and loose with things Catholic the series still manages to portray characters with genuine faith, humility and the odd bit of theology.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Creator: Michael Mendheim; Mike Kennedy; Sean Jaffe; & Simon Bisley Publisher: Titan Comics Date: 2014

Raised by the ancient Order of Solomon, Adam Cahill is one of a rare handful of highly trained warriors bound by bloodline to guard the Seven Holy Seals that contain the End of Days.

But ageless forces have conspired towards a prophetic event foretold by numerous cultures and multiple religions… and when that cryptic date arrives, they strike against the order without mercy!

The Lone and Level Sands

Creator: A. David Lewis and mpMann Publisher: Archaia (Imprint of BOOM! Studios) Date: 2005

Pharaoh Ramses II hasn’t seen his long-lost cousin Moses in nearly forty years. Yet while pressed by the Hittites to the North and construction delays in the South, Ramses must make time for this ancient desert rascal, the long-ago mystery he represents, and the impossible demands of an alien deity. Drawing on the Bible, the Qur’an, and historical sources, writer A. David Lewis (Mortal Coils) and artist Marvin Perry Mann (Arcana Jayne) present a retelling of the Book of Exodus through the eyes of the man who is either its greatest leader or its worst villain: a man trying to rule wisely, love his family well, and deal justly in the face of a divine wrath.

Some New Kind of Slaughter, or Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again)

Creator: mpMann & A. David Lewis Publisher: Archaia (Imprint of BOOM! Studios) Date: 2009

If there is one constant throughout most of Earth’s historical nations, cultures, and religions, it is the threat and the destruction of the Great Flood. In the wake of the recent Indian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and alarm over global warming, the award-winning creators of The Lone and Level Sands return to plumb the depths of the world’s great myths with this graphic novel exploring how this legendary fear may be more relevant now than ever before. Like Noah, sea-bound Ziusudra and other heroes across time must strive against the coming Floods and the baffling will of the gods.

Judas

Creator: Jeff Loveness & Jakub Rebelka Publisher: BOOM! Studios Date: 2009

Judas Iscariot journeys through life and death, grappling with his place in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” and how much of his part was preordained. In a religion built on redemption and forgiveness, one man had to sacrifice himself for everyone…and it wasn’t Jesus.

Kismet: Man of Faith

Creator: A. David Lewis; Noel Tuazon; Rob Croonenborghs; Taylor Esposito; & Tyler Chin-Tanner Publisher: A Wave Blue World Date: 2018

Punching Nazis used to be more than a meme. In 1944, it was a vocation. And no one put his gloved fist in the faces of more fascists than the Man of Fate, the Algerian Operative, our man in Occupied France — Kismet.

Then, he disappeared. Gone without a trace…until now.

Back from beyond, Kismet finds a new world of gay rights, quantum physics, and computer technology along with the old evils of bigotry, greed, and ignorance at a crossroads. Twenty-first-century America needs more than a superhero. It needs an ally.

Religion and Comics – Wrap Up It's been a while since the Top 10 religion and comics installments, and I've been meaning to post a number of other comics that didn't make it into that list but are still worth mentioning in passing.

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 6 years ago

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Comic Series to Read (Pt4)

+REDLANDS by Tom King, Vanessa Del Rey & Jordie Bellaire

A mysterious and bloodthirsty matriarchal force runs the town of Redlands, Florida, and in order to stay on top, sacrifices must be made. Someone is intent on removing these women from the top of the food chain, and he's ready to unleash their darkest secret but has seriously underestimated the lengths the townspeople will go to protect the new order of things.

So this is pretty fucking dark, like it’s fascinating and you do want to know what’ll happen next but... it’s dark. It really is worth the read, unless such things stress you out, in which case try another item on the list! [POC/WOC protagonists, witchcraft, nsfw, sex scenes, murder, human sacrifice, nudity, violence, slavery/prostitution, possession, alcohol/drugs, etc.]

+NAILBITER by Joshua Williamson, Mike Henderson & Adam Guzowski

"Where do serial killers come from?" and why has Buckaroo, Oregon given birth to sixteen of the most vile serial killers in the world? NSA Agent Nicholas Finch needs to solve that mystery in order to save his friend, and he'll have to team up with the infamous Edward "Nailbiter" Warren to do it. Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson deliver a mystery that mixes Twin Peaks with the horror of Se7en!

It will repulse you, it’s meant to. The mass-murderer-who-went-free is the titular nailbiter, he has a thing for chewing people’s nails off, before/after death, which was yikes. Turns out he’s from a town where there’s been a metric fucktonne of serial killers, all with highly specific ways of killing, like weird ways. People have been trying to capitalise on that. Except now people are dying, and while a copycat is suspected, when the protagonist’s friend goes missing looking for answers, he has to step in and find out wtf is happening. [POC protag, serial killers/murder, body horror and gore, violence, animal cruelty, blood, swearing, lynch mobs, etc.]

+RAT QUEENS by Kurtis J Wiebe & Ron Upchurch

Who are the Rat Queens? A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they're in the business of killing all god's creatures for profit. It's also a darkly comedic sass-and-sorcery series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack!

An instant favourite, honestly. You can’t NOT love these fucking disaster babes, no matter what happens they find a way to fuck up and then fix it. Re-readable a million times over, can’t wait for the next book to be honest. [LGBPTA+, nudity, sex, alcohol, drinking, violence, magic, dark magic, crazy bullshit and stoned smidgens]

+ELFQUEST by Richard & Wendy Pini

If you don’t know what elfquest is, google it people, I love it. It’s like 40years old at this point, and you can read MOST of it online (the original coloured books/graphic novels are expensive and rare, but the black and white omnibuses are for sale).

If you like it, Elfquest: The Final Quest has just been written/finished. That was a fucking emotional rollercoaster i tell you what. LGBPTA+, poly families, violence, killing, humans are assholes, affections, family, magic, nudity, sex but like... tastefully, mostly... etc.

Read book 3 in the library when I was beginning high school, never looked back, fucking loved them.

+MOONSTRUCK by Grace Ellis, Kate Leth & Shae Beagle

Werewolf barista Julie and her new girlfriend go on a date to a close-up magic show, but all heck breaks loose when the magician casts a horrible spell on their friend Chet. Now it's up to the team of mythical pals to stop the illicit illusionist before it's too late.

Reading it right now, very cute and easy to relate to. Love the artstyle, it suits the story really well; and the plot is just WHAAAAAAAAAAT, and chaotic. Hard to put down. Awkward wlw werewolves, love them. [LGBPTA+, nonbinary centaur, gay werewolves, chaos, magic, etc.]

+BABYTEETH by Donny Cates, Garry Brown & Mike Marts

Sadie Ritter is sixteen years old, nine months pregnant, and scared out of her sweet nerdy mind. Having a baby that young is tough. But with the support of her loving family behind her, everything should be okay. OH YEAH, and also her baby is the antichrist and it's going to break open the barriers between the earthly and demonic planes and unleash eternal suffering to all of humankind. Other than that, though...should be fine.

Don’t own the series yet, but have read a lot of it. Turns out being the mother of the antichrist really, really sucks and your family can be your greatest ally... or craziest cultist bullshit enemy. So hard to put down, I really loved it. [Violence, antichrist, demons, gore, murder, kidnapping, child-stealing, demon raccoons, etc.]

+THE WOODS by James Tynion & Michael Dialynas

On October 16, 2013, 437 students, 52 teachers, and 24 additional staff from Bay Point Preparatory High School in suburban Milwaukee, WI vanished without a trace. Countless light years away, far outside the bounds of the charted universe, 513 people find themselves in the middle of an ancient, primordial wilderness. Where are they? Why are they there? The answers will prove stranger than anyone could possibly imagine.

Just got this, haven’t yet had a chance to read it (bc Moonstruck), but very excited to!

Will put up additional posts when I can afford to get through the other like 6 fucking pages of my graphic novel wishlist, lmao.

If you have a suggestion, let me know or add it on.

#more stuff

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melaaaaa02 · 3 years ago

Text

The Essay You Are Born to Write

Dear A minions, please consider my M overwrought essay about how U ignoring K cultural appropriation taught me H the meaning of power. Dear B friends, please consider my R personal essay about how Z being involved with M roller derby taught me N true friendship. Dear C suckers, please consider my P rhetorical essay about how T embracing I fleabag taught me L how to say no. Dear D crew, please consider my J second person essay about how S learning about Q the ad industry taught me T teamwork. Dear E losers, please consider my N draft essay about how Q opposing N horrible goose taught me K resilience. Dear F peasants, please consider my Z poorly-written essay about how N discovering H doomsday preppers taught me U to check my privilege. Dear G gentlefolk, please consider my T 10,000 word essay about how M questioning B a freshman congressperson taught me M about masculinity. Dear H co-conspirators, please consider my K three-part essay about how A writing about R comic books taught me W a second language. Dear I meatbags, please consider my A experimental essay about how U ignoring U gluten-free living taught me V to live deliciously. Dear J whoever, please consider my L lyric essay about how I analyzing D dogs taught me I patience. Dear K peeps, please consider my G contrarian essay about how P protesting P edgelord comedy taught me R mindfulness. Dear L comrades, please consider my D flash essay about how E interrogating X mumblecore taught me X to trust no one. Dear M coven, please consider my C opinion essay about how K abandoning S Greek epic poetry taught me Z lawless behavior. Dear N fans-to-be, please consider my L lyric essay about how V hating on G social media taught me D the value of family. Dear O sheeple, please consider my V hypertext essay about how G reevaluating W unsolicited taught me G generosity. Dear P weirdos, please consider my Q surrealist essay about how L investigating V the illuminati taught me Y about millenials. Dear Q adjudications, please consider my X grant-funded essay about how O reading about A U.S. immigration policy taught me E to follow my dreams. Dear R world, please consider my O multimedia essay about how C researching Z online literary magazines taught me P a new life hack. Dear S cowards, please consider my W half-baked essay about how H rejecting C horror movies taught me F about feminism. Dear T allies and enemies, please consider my S cross-genre essay about how D studying Y 18th-century literature taught me O to reject status quo. Dear U pantheon, please consider my E hybrid essay about how J rediscovering T the Cthulhu mythos taught me C that I was gay. Dear V esteemed ones, please consider my speculative essay about how F exploring O gender taught me B self-acceptance. Dear W New Yorker, please consider my F scholarly essay about how X modelling my life on L full communism taught me E to follow my dreams. Dear X lords and ladies, please consider my B braided essay about how B falling in love with F Magic Mike XXL taught me Q where babies come from. Dear Y fellow Americans, please consider my H illustrated essay about how W working for J dad jokes taught me S how to be happy alone. Dear Z admirers, please consider my U confessional essay about how Y admiring E romance novels taught me A to love again.

#creative nonfiction

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