#this is what that looks like. checkmate feminists’

[j-esbian]

(one of) the most frustrating parts about the portrayal of drow society is that it wants to create Reverse Sexism without uncoupling itself from some. pretty foundational patriarchal ideas. it ascribes to the (tired, essentialist) notion that men are inherently good at certain things, and women are inherently suited for different things

but rather than the basic subversion of “women are warriors and men are the homemakers” or even early feminist thought experiments like “traditionally ‘women’s priorities’ are given importance over ‘men’s’ (ie things are governed by council, importance is placed on childrearing, etc)”, menzoberranzan is “this society still holds to patriarchal values and women are not as good at these things which is why it’s demonstrably worse”.

the biggest tell is that they have to control the male population to maintain female dominance, the implication being that in a fair fight, men would easily overpower them. it assumes the misogynist ideas as fact that “women are inherently weaker” and also “women are duplicitous” so the drow fighting style is based on stealth and sabotage rather than “”honorable”” face- to-face combat (letting lie also the assumption that the only avenue for ambition is through military violence, and therefore still making it so that they are reliant on men, even as disposable shock troops, for their success).

the only things that keep women in charge are by stacking the numbers on a systematic level, and through sexual domination on the individual level (because clearly the only real power a woman can have over men is her sexuality).

it is a society where “men act like men” but women don’t act like women; it is evil because an act of god created an aberration against the “natural order” of things, and there is no one to tend the hearth (because if the women won’t do it, no one will)

[autolenaphilia]

Farrell's Fallacy

One of the most common forms of antifeminist arguments is something I'm now going to call Farrell's Fallacy. I've discussed it before in this essay, but now I have a snappy name for it and what I said bears repeating. Farrell's fallacy goes like this.

"Feminists say we live in a patriarchy and men have male privilege. But look at this group of men undeniably experiencing marginalization and oppression. Where is their male privilege? Checkmate, feminists!"

It's named after Warren Farrell, "father of the men's rights movement." This is admittedly partly for alliterative reasons, but also because he used an early version of it in his 1993 book The Myth of Male Power, where he used the fact that working class men are exploited by capitalism and are drafted to die in wars to argue that, well, male power is a myth and in fact "men are the disposable sex."

Yet you can substitute any group of marginalized men in the argument, and the argument is pretty much the same. The "group of men undeniably experiencing marginalization and oppression" can be non-white men, disabled men, gay men, trans men, and so on, sometimes all of them at once. It's therefore very popular here on tumblr as a way to sell antifeminism to social justice people who have a poor grasp of feminist theory, because it appeals to their understandable desire to support marginalized groups.

And it is a fallacy, because it relies on a strawman. It presumes feminists are doing the most simplistic analysis possible of patriarchy and male privilege, where only gender is taken into account and complicating factors like class and race are ignored. In reality intersectionality has been an important part of feminist analysis for over 30 years.

And while Farrell's Fallacy uses real oppression as part of its argument, it dishonestly contextualizes that oppression. It ignores that the oppression is not on the basis of these men's gender, but on other factors. These men are oppressed, yes, but it's because of systemic injustices based on class, race, disability and queerness and so on.

This often means their male privilege is severely curtailed, but it doesn't remove it. Women also suffer from these forms of oppression and they are often worse for women because they often intersect with the misogyny of patriarchal society, which is why we have terms like misogynynoir, lesbophobia and transmisogyny. It is in comparison with similarly marginalized women that we can see the male privilege of marginalized men.

This is one of the most common antifeminist arguments, especially here on tumblr. And i hope this post helps you recognize it for the nonsese it is.

[sunseekingz]

die a hero: chapter 8

here's a snippet from my jegulus idk !

He’s smirking at James with a face that so clearly reads “ checkmate.” 

“Who the hell is that?” James yells through the wind in short breaths, pointing to the ground below them. His chest is heaving as he tries to catch his breath. 

“You brought your sidekick, I brought mine,” the man shrugs carelessly, and he’s clearly not as gassed as James is from the chase. He sounds so posh as he says it, James has to resist the urge to mock him the way he does Sirius. 

“That is not my sidekick, if anything I’m her sidekick,” James corrects for some reason, because he can never think straight when faced with this man. 

“Wow, how very feminist of you, Jamie,” the man mocks, his eyes crinkling up to match the sarcastic grin that has spread across his face. It’s this grin, the one that’s so sinister, but somehow so sweet that wakes James up.

 In one swift movement, he grabs his bow and arrow from his back, and has it drawn back and pointed at the man across from him. He can’t turn and run now, he won’t be able to avoid James’ arrow. He has him now. He finally has him. 

“Are you going to kill me, Jamie?” the man pouts, although he doesn’t look afraid. He doesn’t look scared at all, only patronizing. Toying with James. But he’s wrong. He’s not going to kill him. 

“I’m not you. I don’t kill people. But that doesn’t mean I won’t shoot this arrow through your shoulder and drag you to meet the justice you deserve,” James shouts, his anger coming out through the gravel in his voice. James takes a step forward, ready to take a shot, and is surprised when the man before him takes a step forward as well. 

“Oh how righteous you are, James Potter , so holier than thou” the man begins, taking another purposeful step towards James. “You think you and I are so different because– what? You get rid of the bad guys? Guess what, baby?” he sneers. “’I'm getting rid of the bad guys too, but unlike you, I’m not giving them the chance to return to their sin. I’m doing you a favour, I’m doing what you’re not strong enough to,” he spits now, taking another step, “I’m getting rid of them for good.”

James veins pop from his forehead and neck as his body tenses up.

“Those people are innocent!” James screams, his fingers shaking on his bow. “Innocent people, and you’ve taken everything from them!”

“Is that what you think? That I’m doing all this for no reason? That these people don’t deserve this? Look a little closer, Jamie. I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”

He’s playing mind games with James. He has to be. 

He lying. There are no ulterior motive to his crimes. He’s a murderer, a monster. He wants to try and appeal to James’ emotions, to try and make him think that there’s some sort of honour in his killing.

 The anger, the slight conflict, it must be apparent on James’ face, because the man speaks again.

“What’s wrong, Jamie? Having trouble fitting me in that little box you’re trying to put me in? I–”

He doesn’t get to finished his sentence, because James fires. His arrow flies through the air, heading straight for his aimed target, and James has never missed. 

James wouldn’t have missed.

But the man darts to the right of where James had aimed at his shoulder and catches his arrow in his hand mid-air, and for the first time, James seems to have surprised the man.

 His eyebrows are furrowed as he twirls the arrow he’s caught around in his fingers like a baton. He stares at James, and his surprise quickly turns to anger, the smirk he usually wears disappearing into a stone-cold grimace. The grey of his eyes gets darker, turning almost black, and James hates that he notices them so easily. Hates that he always manages to catch his attention. Hates that he thinks he’s so–

His expression turns to pure hatred, and it’s for the first time that James realizes that this man could kill him.

 In his pursuit, James had never feared for his life. It wasn’t that he was unaware of who he was up against, the type of person he was dealing with. There was just something about the man that gave James the impression he didn’t want to kill him, not if he didn’t have to at least.  

But it seems James has just changed the rules of the game. 

He had killed seven people now, all without struggle, and James was good, but now he was evenly matched. It wasn’t just a cat and mouse chase anymore.

James had closed the trap when he fired at him.

His only mistake was that he didn’t catch him. 

It wasn’t death that scared him, it was the fact that to die would mean to lose. 

If he died, the murders would continue until the man with the mask decided he had killed enough. Until there were no more cards left. 

 Nobody would ever be able to stop him.

But James won’t be afraid, he won’t beg for his life. 

He hopes that Marlene is having better luck. 

He hopes that she’s okay, that he hasn’t failed her too.

The man stops twirling the arrow, holding it in his fist as he draws his left hand behind him. 

He hopes Sirius will forgive him. He hopes Remus will take care of him. He doesn’t want Sirius to be alone, he’s not meant to be alone. 

 He doesn’t want him to have to suffer another loss, but well, that seems to be out of James’ hand now. He doesn’t have time to keep thinking about it. 

James holds his chin up, and takes a page from his opponent's book. He decides, for what may be his last trick, he’ll play a mind game of his own.

He reaches up to his face and pulls his mask down, letting it wrap around his neck instead. If this man is going to kill him, going to take his life, he’ll have to face him. He’ll have to look him in the eyes while he does it. The eyes he somehow already knows. 

 James smiles, a bright, full teethed grin. 

Something in the dark haired man’s face flickers as he takes in the sight of James. It looks like recognition, familiarity, and of course he knows who James is already, but it feels different with everything uncovered and on the surface.

 It feels different for James, too. 

The man hasn’t unmasked himself, but for some reason, looking at him without his own mask on, it feels like something he’s experienced before. It feels like the eyes looking back at him with indifference while James smiles is a situation he’s been in before. It’s on the tip of his tongue. He knows this feeling, he’s been here before, he’s certain of it. He knows this feeling. 

“Who are you?” James asks, his voice soft this time. 

It’s a question. It’s a temporary truce. It’s the dropping of a knife from a clenched fist and holding out a hand instead. 

The man's face flickers again, and it’s fear this time. He can sense that James knows him from somewhere, that his harsh gaze is familiar, and it’s scared him.  James isn’t holding the arrow anymore, but the ball is in his court again. 

But the man before him, he doesn’t  unclench the knife from his own fist. He doesn’t take James’ hands. 

His fear turns to anger once again and the storm eyed man draws his hand all the way back. James can tell it’s aimed for his chest, for his heart.

He thrusts it forward, and the arrow flies through the air. James thinks he can dodge it for a moment, that it’s not going that fast, but he’s wrong.

His chest clenches as he braces for the impact. He wonders what it will feel like to have something stabbed into his heart. He thinks the feeling may be familiar. 

The air flies, but it doesn’t hit his chest, not at all. 

It lodges into his right kneecap, and James falls to the ground with a thud, a loud grunt of pain bellowing from his throat. 

The pain is immediate, radiating from the point of impact through the entirety of his leg. It’s piercing to his bone, and James hasn’t felt a pain like this in a long time. He’s hissing through clenched teeth, staring as blood pours from his knee and trails onto the cement of the roof. He can’t pull the arrow out, but he can’t walk with it in. He’s trapped there, curled up on the cold pavement of a rooftop. 

 He hears the sound of boots slapping against the roof tile, and he tries to sit up, but he can’t find the strength to get up, to fight  back. The pain is overwhelming. The black boots come into view, and the man crouches down to where James is laying on the floor. 

“That was a warning shot, Potter,” the man grits through his own teeth. “I’m going to finish what I’ve started here, and if you don’t stay the fuck out of my way, your importance to him is going to cease to matter to me any longer.” 

He reaches to James’ knee and pulls the arrow out with one quick yank, not bracing James for the impact or trying to soften the blow in any way whatsoever. James winces, crying out in pain as he feels the arrow split through his skin, tearing through the flesh and bone. It’s a toe-curling, nauseating pain that’s almost worse than the pain of the arrow going in. 

The man throws the bloodied arrow to the ground with a clank and rises back to his full height, walking back across the roof out of James’ view from where he lies on the ground. 

He had let him go.

He hadn’t killed him.

Why hadn’t he killed him?

He thinks he hears the sound of boots slapping the pavement again, that the man has jumped to another roof, but as he tries to sit up to look, his vision begins to darken, and his mind begins to cloud. 

His head falls back to the pavement, and before he passes out, the last thing he thinks is of the man’s words.

“Your importance to him is going to cease to matter to me any longer.”

Who the hell was him?  

And then it all goes black. 

[susansontag]

really can’t believe someone came onto my blog where I was saying the infrastructure in western europe looks as it does because of a legacy of colonisation and imperialism not because women can vote and someone decided to try and construct a gotcha by saying oh but it was actually better views towards women that allowed western europe to engage in their murderous campaigns of resource expropriation elsewhere so actually that meme that these countries are beautiful because women can vote isn’t so far off the mark! and then ‘feminists’ reblogged this like yeah checkmate. colonisation even being possible for western europe was due to their huge feminist wins. like what in the actual

[what-wait-why]

"since he(the gay friend) is a man, i have been reliably informed men cannot have an opinion on this, and you should have told to him to shut up"

???????????????????

[oyasuminto]

Thinking about how Argus would react if his obsession was a feminist 🤔 Doesn't matter if they're barely involved with it or a full on activist the idea of his obsession even agreeing with one thing having to do with feminism has him seething. Like you could be having a casual conversation (as casual a conversation you could have with him) & you mention how happy you are you get paid as much as your male colleague because alot of women aren't as lucky as you man's is already seeing red. Calls you one of those "FemBitches" and says women aren't getting paid as much because of their hormones & they can't think rationally. He's ranting about how single mothers are the real deadbeats & that the 2nd wave feminist movement was asking for too much.

Too dazed from all his ranting to focus on how he said you need to stop being a feminist or else you can't be a proper housewife. He's fully convinced if they meet a good man, like him, they'll realize how stupid they're being.

Also I could see him being petty & breaking your car so you have to get rides from him. Using this as an example of how great of a provider he is & how you'll never be independent from men because that's what feminism is actually about according to his father. You end up having to stay with him for reasons I'm not creative enough to come up with. You don't have to pay rent, he's a man & providing for his woman is what he's supposed to do. When he's home he'll use every opportunity to explain why feminism is bad, kinda acts like it's supposed to be the avengers or something "Where was feminism when your house got broken into they stole your panties🤔 Checkmate😼". Since you believe all genders are equal you wouldn't mind sharing a bath to conserve water & you can't sleep on the couch because that'll mess up your back & the couch so just sleep with him. When he gropes you while you're sleeping he'll remind you that you can do the same to him because that's what gender equality is. 100% he's looking up "Feminist bitch gets railed & creampied after a protest" on the hub. -🫐

Y E S

Argus was raised to believe that feminists, no matter how milquetoast and inoffensive, are just uppity bitches who don't understand how good they've got it. Why would women want feminism when they can have men provide for them?

He's definitely not above sabotaging your life so you'll have no choice but to rely on him. Your car's suddenly missing a part? Here, let him drive you to work! You got evicted after your landlord got some kind of anonymous tip about you dealing drugs from your apartment? That's insane! While you're figuring out just who did that, why not come stay with Argus? His house has more than enough room. All you have to do is handle the domestic chores.

Isn't this so much easier? Do you really need independence?

Even if you insist on sleeping on the couch, there's still a very good chance that you'll wake up to Argus groping you. When he sees your expression he just rolls his eyes and puts your hand on his barely-clothed cock. There, now you're equal, that's what you wanted, right?

Argus' porn habits are horrendous. You'll hear obnoxiously loud, obviously fake moans at all hours of the night, his browser history is full of videos like Feminist Worships Cock, Bitch Gets Bred, Femboy Fucked Hard, you get the point.

[iceyrukia]

liberal feminists be like: oh there’s rampant pedophilia, incest, misogyny, sexual abuse, rape, racism, human trafficking in the porn industry? really? well I’ll be dammed that sucks :( I didn’t notice even though I go to these sites and see videos titled: “ TINY ASIAN ( BARELEY LEGAL ;) ) TEEN SLUT GETS HUMILIATED BY STEP-FATHERS BIG WHITE COCK”. and the suggested video with a thumbnail showing a prepubescent girl-oh I mean women (I’m sure it’s a women people wouldn’t post a lil girl right??) in pigtails sitting in a pink bedroom filled with children’s toys looking innocently up at the camera isn’t wierd. yes that might be a kid but let’s not assume the worst that’s just a women that likes pigtails, and toys so don’t assume ok. also ur a weirdo for thinking that way actually ur the pedophile for pointing it’s out me thinks 😕. oh I forgot we were talking about those aesthetics in the context of porn. hmmm well idk what if a women likes it so stop 🛑 with all the infantilism #supportallwomen. and no let’s not question why any man would to fuck a women that resembles a child. as long as it’s not a lil girl it’s not actual pedophilia it’s just a kink u judgey prude. plus those aren’t the norm in porn what kind of videos are you watching LoL I only 🤥 watch every other video that casually uses the words “ bitch/whore/slut/ cum dumpster” as replacement for the word women tho HAHAHA just normal kink stuff ya know and stop slut shaming me becuz it’s not misogynistic since I’ve reclaimed the words slut and bitch 😤 like I’m so cunty 🥵 for that ughhh it’s just #badbitch things you wouldn’t get it 🤪. no you don’t get it by calling myself a slut it cancels out the history of the word and I’m sure the men watching these videos don’t associate sex as an act of hate towards women. constantly jacking off to “ slut devours my dick” only rewires men’s brains to see women as human being even more. oh tbh I only watch feminist lesbian porn because I support women😏. uuummm no it doesn’t mimics the dynamics of straight misogynistic porn and doesn’t cater to voyeurisric creepy men what are you taking about??? shut up stop trying to ruin everything. gurl alllsooooooo gay porn exists so much idk why you’re trying to claim all porn is bad. this is NOT comparable in any way to men saying that women should stop taking about rape because men can also be raped ok because uhhh porn makes me horny and that’s all that matters so there #notallporn. ✊WeLL Anywayzz like I was sayin uh damn 😔 I hope all the human trafficking and rape stops. I hope all of that junk * motions vaguely* gets regulated soon in order to soothe my guilty conscio- I mean for the safety of all those women getting abused. wait ur saying that it should be our priority as feminists to stop this??? nahhhh I think the men running these sites making profit out of actual rape videos have our best interests in mind they’ll come around! also what if all the good ethical porn by the totally consenting sex workers gets deleted as collateral damage for going after these companies. Ur so insensitive and short sited god 😬 im sure the millions of porn videos out there will be screened and regulated don’t worry!! even if a women is traumatized by her rape video floating around it doesn’t take precedent over the other good videos ur being unfair. like I freakin said #notallporn. oh you can never really tell whether porn is consensual????? well, YOU can’t tell that it isn’t so there 🤷‍♀️# unoreversecard # checkmate. ur just being a negative nancy 🙄 anyways until that time comes when the porn industry magically regulates itself I’m still gonna watch porn sooo yea- oh now wut do you have to say? hmmm? the existence of pornography and my bdsm kink are all due to living under a misogynistic patriarchal society?? Impossible!!! how can it be bad if it makes me feel good 😂 that’s stupid af. socialization? oh I’m immune to that because I’m a strong independent smart women stop patronizing me. it’s makes me feel good to wank off to porn so it can’t be bad how many times do I have to tell you????

[searenbound]

Akdnide THANK YOU

You know how many people tell me Mitsuki is such an 'awesome mom' and its like-

No! No she isn't! I want to think she just genuinely cares and doesn't know how to p a r e n t but you don't up and tell a kid him being kidnapped was his fault for being 'to weak'! And hit said child when their just quietly sitting there!

Anyways, yeah, needed to rant.

As a present take another hc-

Bakugou has proven that to him, just because someone's a woman means nothing. He will fight and treat them as he would anyone else.

So I totally think Bakugou would fight anyone who says crap about girls.

Someone says periods aren't hard to deal with? He punches them in the gut and lets them know period cramps are like that, but for a week.

Someone calls a girl weak just because shes cute/pretty? He'll challenge the girl to a sparing match just so they can show off their skills without them getting in trouble.

Someones talking crap about a transgender girl?

He just walks up, stares them in the eye, as he tells the girl that their gorgeous. ( With S/o's approval of course )

Someone mockingly says, 'What, are you on your period?'

Bakugou just blasts them because he is so done with people-

Someone is a perv? Saying inappropriate things, touching a girl inappropriately?

BAKUGOU DOES THE THINGS THE GUY WAS DOING TO THE GIRL, AND WHEN THE GUY EXPRESSES HIS DISCOMFORT HE JUST YELLS 'OH YOU DONT LIKE IT?!'

( And honestly Bakugou would just beat the crap out of them if they did any of this to his s/o-- )

I honestly think they get fanon Mitsuki confused with canon Mitsuki a lot. I don’t really mind fanon because she’s just a sassy mom dealing with a brat but canon will literally pick fights just to get him to yell and fight back because she has a ‘headstrong attitude’. I don’t doubt she loves him but love is the barest minimum for a relationship, it’s how you nurture and foster it that counts

Also feminist Bakugou is a standard here. He grew up drinking respect women juice, mostly because auntie Inko was so nice and his mother, while you know is Mitsuki, taught him that girl are just as tough if not tougher then boys.

He’d tear the head off of anyone who disagrees because they’re just so so very stupid and pathetic. Genuinely doesn’t understand how a man can disrespect a woman when they themselves came out of one that carried them for so damn long and raised them for even longer. Could not be him.

Bring up the sports festival and how he won against Uraraka as a checkmate you’re not so pro woman after all huh? And he’ll go off about how he was meeting the challenge she brought him and he respected and still respects her for it and even she says she’s grateful for it because she learned from it, just like he did, and they still spare together now when they get the chance.

And of course he brings the same energy and levels of pure respect to his relationship. His s/o is so loved and well taken care of and it always surprises people who aren’t close to him how happy together they are which makes s/o go off for a change. They can’t understand what’s so weird about it and how they can just decide for them that they must be miserable when he’s the best partner they could’ve ever asked for and they won’t accept any one else saying otherwise.

Meanwhile Katsuki just standing their looking absolutely in love and laughing his ass off and encouraging them to go for the throat if they’re gonna kill them like that.

[skinfeeler]

@dekatria, you say the same thing like five times in a row so i won’t dignify your wall of text by putting it on my blog, instead, i’ll put it in a readmore.

when you a priori define feminism as synonymous with women’s struggle, you both belittle all the people who fought for gender equality before the term was coined as well as many people who fought for it who actively distanced themselves from it (such as emma goldman because they thought that the movement as such did not actually represent women’s interests or anyone, for that matter) whether it was because they put gender inequality down to root causes which deserved more attention or because they felt that feminism did not represent them in general. thus, from a histiographical perspective, feminism is indeed best defined as 'a range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes‘— as borrowed from wikipedia.

redefining things into what you need them to be isn’t an argument against that, much like you might think it is. specifically, arguing that when feminists do what you like that is feminists but when they don’t do what you like it is not, that it is ‘separate’ completely precludes any sort of analysis of the actual substance and influence of such movements. moreover, you clearly do not apply this standard fairly: when people who stand for and benefit from advocacy for equity do as you like, they are feminists, when they take issue with feminists not representing their interests, they are ‘demonising feminism’. you are doing nothing with your definition but using it as a cudgel to render people who take issue with what’s at stake here politically abject and de-identified from their actual struggles. not only do you prop up a “no true scotsman,” you strip away people’s interests until their genuine complaints have turned into something that you could only ever ascribe to be toxic in essence. this is intellectually dishonest and blatantly fallacious, not to mention disrespectful and callous.

when you do this, you enable a framing in which oppression has nothing to do with the factually oppressed. when you do this, you prop up a frame in which the oppressed speaking up against people who do not represent their interests are actually perpetrators, this is quite explicitly and demonstrably what you did. this is what you are doing, factually, when you say that people who take issues with real deviations from constructive discourse in feminist circles are just ‘demonising feminism’ (already defined as all that is good in the world). thus the tanden situation is relevant: your kind of rhetoric is and has been used to keep the frame away from actual evil and suffering in the world and instead brings it back to whether people are obedient enough to people who while professing to stand for progress and indeed to ‘embody’ it (even though someone being elected into the parliament of a global superpower does not help people globally or even within domestic spheres).

your language games do nothing but preclude analysis of what’s actually going on and are dependent on stark and obtuse denials of things that have been documented, and it serves for nothing but to enable media pundits to get away with lying to the public about the concerns that people have with political figures that are supposed to represent them, or to deny people like me the language to describe how they have been failed by certain mass movements. it does not matter whether you personally perform wrong analysis (although you do) and whether you personally lie to the people, but you seem intent on being a useful idiot to these people, and it’s what you are when your language game makes any analysis of movements as they actually exist in the world already impossible. your love for a definition stops you from doing what you need to in order to actually speak to the concerns of the people, and it stops you from engaging in the kind of histiographical and ideological analysis that could ever serve anyone. it is masturbatory, and every stroke of repetition of your tautology convinces nobody who don’t agree with the same cult-like behavior that places you above all criticism in the first place. no knowledge is gained here and nobody is advocated for, all that has happened is that you’ve defined yourself as being always right.

genuine members of ideological groups are ideological members of them, not infiltrants, but your definition asks nothing of you in terms of engaging with the actual beliefs of the people therein, instead defining them out of existence. it has been said that arguing with a christian is like playing chess with a pigeon who when it loses, shits all over the board and declares victory. arguing with you is much like someone who in response to being checkmated makes another move because they’ve defined away any sort of simple rules and agreements which could indict any flaw on part of their playstyle, or in fact any property of the ruleset which describes how the game has actually played/the way the world actually looks and the people therein behave. my words are clearly wasted on you, and by the time you have reached the end of this, i will surely have blocked you. simply put, i do not feel like holding your hand when it is clear you lack the kind of developed capacity for holistic thought that would enable you to engage in this but anything but smugly repeating the same definition over and over again and claiming victory as thousands languish away in prisons, slavery, and warzones. you are not their friend and evidently do not feel the need to be.

[turisa]

[an Image i am not going to post because you, if not, @loveywitch knows]

what is the opposite of the pleading emoji. i feel it when i see this image. you ever watched la rosa de guadalupe? remember how whenever a character is in the wind as the holy spirit is imbued in them or some shit. i feel THAT but with wrath.

im not going to TALK about the style, i’m not an artist and i can’t make statements on that. but on a primal level, i hate this mf so bad already, and then to see him as the go-to for a little sprinkle of melanin? some paprika? bitch i will personally pull you down to hell with me. THIS MAN?? THIS WORM OF A HUMAN BEING? redemption arc or not, you HAVE to consider, you have to think twice about making the scientist who used science TO ENSLAVE PEOPLE? well not people BUT SENTIENT AND CONSCIOUS BEINGS WITH FEELINGS AND LIKE. LEGAL RIGHTS. ENSLAVE THEM FOR YOUR PERSONAL BIDDING AND MENIAL TASKS. THIS IS THE PERSON YOU WANNA TOUT AS A DIVERSITY WIN? this is the MOST liberal take since fucking “more female army sergeants!!!1!” bullshit like!

and i could not care less if you have other characters of color to “offset” the insensitivity of this image. please, PLEASE fucking christ think about theses characters individually. if you’re going to pretend like you CARE about your fans of color, then please take like. 3 minutes. and think, if i pitched this character to the face of a person of color, would i be ashamed. if you are, there’s your answer! if you are not, that is your fucking problem. 

ok, the fun stuff:

this bitch looks socially liberal but fiscally conservative. this is the devil’s advocate. this is the pick-me centrist who doesn’t understand why his dipshit opinions r a disgrace to his bloodline. if i wasn’t at an hwc, i would meet this mf in chem and he would try to mansplain what an electron was to me. he briefly vaped bc he thought it would get him girls. he has “is 5′9 but says he’s 6′” energy. if i wear a crop top around him, he posts cryptically on his snapchat story “if women want rights... why wear shirt..... checkmate feminists”. he says “Saturday is for the boys” and rolls his eyes when his professor even just implies systemic racism still exists so his cheesestick fratboy friends will “accept him” as so long as they can have him pose front and center at their photos at illegal social-distancing breaking parties. this man spits on the road but gets grossed out by menstrual products. he tips 2 dollars, no matter how much the entire takeout order costs. i hate him so much. 

WHY ARE PEOPLE HORNY!!! WHY!!!!!! 

[mxtantrights]

✹ 　 PART FOUR (DAMSEL)

HAWKINS, INDIANA

NOVEMBER 3, 1983

I shut my locker after stuffing my regular clothes in, not really out of frustration or anything, just mild annoyance. Gym has to be the worst class I have. It's easy to sit in a refuel classroom and fail, fake paying attention, fake taking notes. But in P.E. I can't do that.

In P.E. I actually have to pay attention. Or a ball will come flying at my head. Or I'll misstep and trip. There are just too many scenarios in which I get hurt if I don't pay attention. And plus our teacher just keeps tabs on every kid in there. It's like he's a hawk or something.

I hate it.

More so, I hate the outfit I have to wear. The shorts, the bullshit shorts I have to wear are unbelievable. I don't know who anyone is kidding here, it's a shit show. I absolutely hate it.

In my shorts and short-sleeved shirt I make my way to the gymnasium. It's too cold to do anything outside thank the mighty heavens and everything in between. At least I won't be freezing.

As I head inside I see the class already running laps. At this point I'm over it. Really done with this whole exercising thing. I do that already biking to and from school. And then picking up my brother. That's about all the fitness I need.

Nonetheless I have to blend in with the crowd. I try to jog into the group without raising suspicion but it seems it can't be done. As soon as I pass by my teacher he locks eyes with me and his eyes squint- is he thinking? Is he warming up his lasers?

His whistle blows and we all stop running.

"Glendall!" He yells, even thought we occupy the same space.

I take a few steps forward. I guess ridicule is becoming my middle name. "Yes, sir?"

"You were late. Do you want to explain why you were late?" It seems rhetorical. And I really do want to reply to him. I was late because I didn't want to be here. But that's not a good answer to get em off the hook. I can hear the kids behind me cracking up.

"I-"

"Why were you late when everyone else seems to know when the bell rings and when to get to class? Everyone else is putting in the effort and you come in late, no participation, no effort. Can you explain?" He barks at me, I swear he's on some thing because there is no reason to be that mad that I'm a few minutes late. Not even ten minutes late.

Never mind the fact that the girls locker room is father than the boys. And that my class before this is located at the opposite side of the school.

"Becau-" I try to answer.

"I get it your new. But that only last so long. It's already November and I can count on one hand how many times you've been late. It seems to be every month with you, are you gonna keep this going all year?"

Lightbulb.

Every month, huh?

Still, he persists. "Should I send you to detention?"

"No sir! It's just-"

"What? What could it be?"

"It's my period!"

His face goes red. The kids are done laughing.

Checkmate.

"Oh- Glendall-" He starts to apologize but boy, oh boy, do I have something for him.

My father would hate the fact that I'm doing this. Beck Gendall the raging feminist. But he doesn't know what it's like. So he's gonna have to suck it up. After all he doesn't have to deal with periods so he doesn't have a say.

"Listen sir, I am sorry but there is nothing I can do to stop mother nature. And I have been trying my best to come on time but I've been in pain. Really bad pain." I point at him now, "And for you to bark at me like that is ridiculous. You don't know the half of it! You'll never know the half of it Sir!"

He looks defeated. Good.

"I'm sorry I didn't know. You can take a seat if you want, or not- I'm not saying your weak or anything, just-" He stops himself short of a failed explanation as he brings the whistle back to his mouth. "Everyone else back to laps."

I will take a seat though! After all, it's what I'm owed.

-

"No way- and you got away with it?" Jonathan asks.

I nod my head. "I mean what's he gonna do check?"

He snickers.

He's in a better mood today. Yesterday wasn't that bad either.

"Oh look, the freaks hangout with each other." A voice- a familiar one- says.

I look up and see her. It's Carol. I figured out her name during class. One of her friends called her name out for something. Then I asked Jonathan about her and he had a lot to say. She's one of those grade A small minded assholes.

It seems trouble just finds me.

"Is there something you want?" I ask lazily, not too excited about her being in my space.

She shrugs her shoulders, "No but do you want some milk?"

My eyes trail down to her hand. A carton of milk. As if this couldn't get more high school. I've never had milk dumped on me before. Back home everyone was friendly with each other. Didn't mean we never had problems, just meant we were civil and solved them with words.

Instead I look behind her. And her posey is there. Two boys, with different looks on their faces. One of them looks stocked to see me get doused with dairy. And the other looks nervous or worried. Like he might mind.

And then the milk is thrown. Right into me. And it's chocolate milk. So it's like even worse. My face makes contact with it and I hold my breath. I don't know why, it's not like I'm taking a dive into it or something.

I can feel it splash onto the side of my clothes.

Like every other high school movie I can hear the room fill with laughter.

She throws the carton onto the table with a smile on her face.

I have to hold it in. I have to. If I get into a fight, then I'll get called into the principal's office. I get called in, and then he looks at my grades. And then my parents get called. And then I'm in an even shittier position than now. Even with chocolate milk dripping down my face.

Being the bigger woman, I stand from my seat, face her and wipe my face off. Carol is still smiling in victory. Some part of me is just itching because that just won't do. And that part is begging for me to just slap that smile off her face, along with her teeth.

I step up in her face. "I see it wasn't a costume."

She gasps.

I check her shoulder in my way out of the cafeteria. It takes a lot to be the bigger one. Thankfully I have whatever it is to do it.

With lighting speed I make it to the girls bathroom. Theres a squeak in my shoes from the milk as I enter, making the girl who's washing her hands look at me.

It's Nancy.

"Jessie? What happened?"

I scoffed, walking up to the paper towel dispenser and pulling them out with a bit of anger. Yeah I'm angry. Pissed even.

"Your friend Carol." I say while wiping my face with the towel.

She turns the sink off and suddenly she at my side pulling out more paper towels. I watch her out of the corner of my eyes, she's drying her hands with a few of them. But then she holds out the rest for me to take.

"I'm sorry." She apologizes even though she wasn't the one who threw the milk. Or made that comment a few days ago. She's just friends with the girl who did.

I look at her properly now. "You shouldn't have to apologize for a friend like that. You shouldn't even have a friend like that."

I take the towels out of her hands and place them on top of the sink.

"I know."

[cadyrocks]

I was super super super into that scene during its peak, so I can share some thoughts in hindsight. This one's gonna be a bit long and rambly.

There's a few different things going on here. There's the new atheist movement as it specifically applied to fundamentalism, religion, and particularly creationism. There's the general "new atheist Youtube aesthetic". And there's "what happened next".

So in general, the New Atheists had some things very right. There aren't good arguments or evidence for the existence of God, particularly the Christian god. A lot of arguments made in favor of organized religion are dishonest, obviously flawed, or just plain silly. Threatening children with hell is child abuse. Creationism is intellectually bankrupt, and "intelligent design" is just creationism in a lab coat. A lot of people were making good arguments. Some channels were legitimately excellent science resources and never stopped being that (c0nc0rdance and Potholer54 come to mind).

A lot of other people were making pretty weak arguments, but... it didn't matter because they were arguing against people like VenomFangX or Kent Hovind.

(Quick aside, in hindsight it kinda feels like Thunderf00t was bullying a neurodivergent kid. Phil, you're a professional scientist, an adult, and you're mocking this teenager for having a mental breakdown while in Joker makeup.)

But the problem was twofold. Firstly, that "Youtube skeptic" quickly became an established aesthetic, one where being right, rational, and logical gave you an excuse to be a huge douche to anyone who believed the wrong things. Secondly, that many of these "rational, logical, right" people were not actually great thinkers; they just looked smart compared to YECs and fundies.

So when the pool of YECs to mock started to run dry, and these channels tried moving on to other things, it... Didn't go well.

The first real shift was when a bunch of channels moved from critiquing religion to critiquing feminism. They brought that same "I'm smarter than you so I'm better than you" attitude and aesthetic to an arena where they were no longer calling out obvious liars and neurodivergent teens, but people who actually think about this stuff. Where they aren't, in fact, the smartest person in the room, where things are nuanced and complex, and where "asshole (usually male) who thinks he knows everything and thinks he's better than you for it" is a very rancid vibe.

So you end up with fucked-up shit like Thunderf00t acting like Anita Sarkeesian is a liar and fraud and obviously not worth taking seriously for incredibly tenuous reasons. She claimed that the female love interest in Double Dragon is a "damsel in distress". But Phil laughs derisively at this absurd portrayal! See, even though the character is kidnapped in the opening sequence, and we spend the entire game trying to rescue her, at the end of the game she crotch-punches the big bad in a cutscene. So obviously she couldn't be helpless, or a damsel in distress. Checkmate, feminists!

He made like 80 videos about Sarkeesian, mostly on about this intellectual level. It was really gross.

Gradually, much of the old skeptic community shifted in tone. Still completely convinced they're right and anyone who disagrees is just stupid, but tackling subjects they are absolutely not prepared for. The takes were bad; the audience gradually filtered for people who were there for the aesthetic and not clever enough to notice how bad the arguments were. By 2015 at the latest, in the wake of Gamergate, and of Mythcon starting to invite weird right-wing bigots, it was obvious something was very, very wrong. I bowed out around there and haven't kept up with them, for the most part, but it shouldn't surprise anyone how many of them ended up supporting Trump. The rationality was all aesthetic.

So, to finally swing back to the main point you made... All of that kind of underlined a growing suspicion - the arguments were never actually that good. These were people who spent time mocking creationists for saying the earth had a thick canopy of ice, but who never went the extra step and wondered, "why are people so eager to believe this crap?" It's all on the level of "point and laugh at the idiot", and never "why does this person actually believe this?" (a question that is a lot more valuable when it comes to fighting beliefs like this). It's not just "cringe but right", it's a specific mode of argumentation that barely even works when dealing with obvious frauds and basic facts.

And, crucially, it does not fail gracefully. If you spend half an hour painting someone as a fraud and a liar, it's very hard to go back and say, "Ah, yeah, guess I was wrong" - at least without then realizing, "Shit, I've been a huge asshole and need to do some self-reflection". Not such a huge problem when going after Ken Ham, noted massive fraud; rather a bigger problem when going after Rebecca Watson for saying that she was uncomfortable with a guy hitting on her in an elevator at 3 in the morning. 😬

Not that there weren't excellent thinkers, or that some of the folks who are now seen as extremely embarrassing (for the love of Batman someone needs to get Dawkins off Twitter) didn't have legitimately important insights and ideas! But a lot of it, particularly the youtube stuff, was really bad. Not just cringy, but the herald of what reactionary YouTube would end up looking like years down the line.

I think I missed the era in which new atheism was an actual rhetorical force on the internet but the way people talk about them now makes it sound like they got lambasted for being cringe despite basically being right about everything

[llawlietofficial]

my stream of consciousness during death note (2017)

So I finally watched this shit show last night, and kept a running document of every thought I had in order. Here are some of the top ones: (under the cut because....it gets a little long. it’s worth it though!) 

okay so first of all what the fuck is this opening song. 

LOSER LIGHT GETS PAID TO DO PEOPLES HOMEWOEK. 

Wow I wish I was as cool as goth head cheerleader Misa Mia

Ooh look at that chemistry

Light looks like a failed wannabe white guy kpop star

Someone gif those opening "death note" letters please

What's with the fucking illuminati symbols on the book ??

Rain makes everything more symbolic I can't believe the creativity of their choices

Aw he's seeing a girl get bullied OF COURSE that's motivation enough to kill

I can't believe Light is a feminist icon stepping in to save Misa Mia like that.

Oh god his whole speech about “technically you bullying me is child abuse” needs to be a copypasta. Someone needs to slap that kid.

SOMEONE JUST SLAPPED THAT KID.

Why does his voice sound like that

Why does his face look like that

Why does he have frosted tips

I can't believe Light is the loser loner pining after the head cheerleader with a girlfriend.

Light is ?? A troublemaker ???

Why is the death note so crusty looking

Marbles.

LIGHT'S SCREAMS MAKE ME SCREAM I want that as my ringtone

"Shall we begin." Wow I love Star Trek Into Darkness.

"Some 8 foot tall demon looking motherfucker" is honestly the best possible description of Ryuk so at least they got that one right.

RIP Light's first victim, Kenny Doyle. You will be missed. 

This Bitch chooses one of the most violent possible deaths for his first victim ???? But canon light didn't like. Start out wanting to cause his victims physical pain. He's not a sadist he's a moral janitor. 

CANON LIGHT WOULD HAVE THOUGHT CHEATING WAS A BIG DEAL !! HE WOULD HAVE KILLED PEOPLE LIKE HIMSELF !!

Oh my god he's so angsty just get a fucking diary.....wait...

Wow I love blatant exposition dropping. I wonder how many times him and his dad have had that exact same conversation over dinner conveniently explained Light's tragic backstory. 

Because this is America. You can't kill people without a tragic backstory (if you're white)

Is he going to scream like that every time Ryuk shows up?

"Your fingers are huge." Hmm? Why do you care about that, Light? Unless you have something you want to share with the class? 

I can't believe they changed Ryuk's motivation that's like everything about him as a character. He didn’t say he was bored like, a single time in this whole series what’s the point. 

He has a whole file on his tragic backstory that he keeps laying around in his room this is next level bullshit.

JESUS FUCKINF CHRIST LIGHT WHAT HAPPENED TO SIMPLE HEART ATTACKS

He. Impaled himself. On a steak knife.

Light's mom was a hippie !!!!!

I can't believe Light's motivation is "karma's a bitch" what an icon. 

I can't believe Misa Mia’s turned on by murder.

Actually. I can believe that.

Light's just. Carrying around the death note right in the open.

"I can't tell you” *brief pause* “so you really want to know?" BITCH YOU EIDN'T EVEN LET HER ANSWER. SHE SEEMED SO UNINTERESTED ANYWAY. WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS COMPULSIVE NEED TO CONFESS THAT YOU’RE A MURDERER! 

LIght wants pussy that bad.

"Your poetry sucks" okay I actually kind of like that line, Misa Mia’s a snarky bitch like she deserves to be. 

She looks bored. Light she doesn't want part of your murder fest !! you don't have to confess so often !! 

as soon as the police swat car hit that guy my friend turned to me and said "when you're a police officer but still text and drive"

Ooh blurry lights that's an edgy cinnamon topography choice.

I don’t like how everyone in this movie is all mumbling.

How many people are going to make mood boards out of the scene where Light and Misa Mia are leaning against that neon sign???

"Do you think I'm crazy?" "If anything I think you're not crazy enough" wow I love the joker and harley quinn!! normal is just a setting on the dryer~~~ rawr

TEHY'RE POST MURDER FUCKING

I said out loud "I can't believe they're going to post murder fuck" and my friend said "But you'd think that was kinky in high school" and i said "hell I think that's kinky now" why am i like this

I can't believe this whole murder fuck montage. They're so cute and in love. My friend just said “relationship goals” and i want to turn off this movie.

Is that Beastly in their school library????

"What they want is a god." 

Okay actually I can see Light getting off on talking about he's a god while fucking. I've read enough fanfiction to prepare me for that scene.

Why does he look like that??

I just love that "Kira saves" graffiti

Why did Kira kill 11 people in a nightclub what did they do ? so serial cheating for money is okay but getting drunk and having sex isn’t?? alright Light. 

L looks like a serial killer with the mask and the hoodie and the dead bodies and I’m.......not loving the look

WATARI ISN'T EVEN JAPANESE. THAT'S NOT EVEN HIS NAME. WHY IS THE ONLY JAPANESE ACTOR THE ONLY CHARACTER CANONICALLY NOT JAPANESE. 

I appreciate his continued sweets addiction though. He is. The only good thing in this movie.

Is he singing wizard of oz what the fu k is happening in this movie

Why do they all talk so quiet

the most inaccurate thing that’s happened so far is actually L taking a nap

Could Light act....a little LESS blatantly on Kira's side????

Detective James Turner.

Honestly this movie is just......boring.

I feel like the voices are at a much lower volume than the music and it’s just...bad

How does he know Kira's in Seattle ??? Is this explained or did I just miss it ???

"What would you do if some guy fucked me?" "I’d kill him." Wow I love this scene in Baby Driver.

I want that furniture. 

Oh I get it. His voice is muffled because of that fucking face mask. 

"Rest your glutes" 

All the things they could have kept and they kept L and Watari giving Light's dad ice cream?

Okay we see Light and Misa at school all the time, but are they ever ??? In class ??

OF COURSE L IMMEDIATELY GOES ON NATIONAL TV

L in a big black hoodie with the big American flag waving in the background is exactly what I expected out of this adaptation.

Light telling Ryuk to shut the fuck up is something I imagined hundreds of times in the anime but never thought I would be lucky enough to see on screen. 

"Besides I think you can tell when you're sitting across from a killer like Kira." HAHAHAHAHA WOW I LOVE THIS DRAMATIC IRONY !!

Light is smart. We know this because we keep saying how smart he is. It doesn’t matter that he’s not making any smart decisions. We said he’s smart so he is. 

I can't believe it's dark outside and they're both wearing sunglasses. You know who wears sunglasses indoors? Douche bags. And blind people.

Ooh Misa Mia doesn't want to pop popcorn and murder a few people there's gotta be trouble in Hollywood romance paradise

I hate the music choices in this movie. a lot. 

"There are no sides. Only the game.” what. 

I can believe Misa Mia’s casually watching torture porn on tv

WHY IS LIGHT'S DAD BASICALLY COMMITTING SUICIDE BY ANNOUNCINF HIS NAME AND HAVINF A PRESS CONFERENCE AND WHY DOES HIS VOICE SOUND LIKE THAT. there's a difference between not being afraid and being a fucking idiot !!! 

I can't believe Light just admitted to not being the good guys anymore.

I CAN'T BELIEVE MISA MIA IS LIGHT ???

Light needs to put his dick away. He really needs to put his dick away.

The cafe scene is really aesthetically pleasing and I hate it. 

"I don't do check, Light, only checkmate" FUUUUCK. 

IS THIS HOe FUXKING ADMITTING ?? THIS DUMB HOE IS ADMITTING TO BEING A SERIAL MURDERER AND ASKING L TO JOIN HIM THIS IS. A SHITTY FANFICTION. WHY IS HE SO DUMB. WHY DOES HE CONFESS TO WVERYONE HE TALKS TO.

Is Light going to get back with her just because she said I love you  ?? LIGHT SHE TRIED TO KILL UR DAD respect yourself !! 

Watari isn't his real name ????  Also what's the point leaving him alive? Free ice cream? Jesus light.

Why do they say Kira with the accent if it's not Japanese ?

L is.....coming slightly unhinged.....he seems.... to have a lot more anger issues that he needs to work through.

LIGHT IN A TOP HAT. I can't believe they're going to this dance. 

I just said "At a certain point it's not even entertaining anymore. It's just pathetic." and my friend, who is now drunk, said "I'm still pretty entertained but maybe it's because I'm drunk."

I can't believe L grew up in that creepy ass murder shack. 

Actually. I can believe L grew up in that creepy ass murder shack. Also I saw the illuminati symbol like five times in that house so what's the truth????

HE DOES HAVE A NORMAL PEOPLE SCARE ME STICKER IN HIS LOCKER I THOUGHT THAT WAS AN EDIT.

Lmao I can't believe Misa Mia was the real mastermind the whole time. "You don't get to feel morally superior for being a pussy." OH SHIT. Oh my fuckin god he fuckin dead.

also L needs to calm the fuck down. Do they not teach you how to drive in the orphanage?

I don't know just what happened with that store owner attacking the armed black man assaulting the teenager in an alley way but it felt racist.

Light is desperate and pathetic. Has he made....a single smart decision?

"JESUS TAKE THE FERRIS WHEEL!!! TAKE IT FROM MY HAND !!!"

Chicago's I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love? Are you fucking kidding me?

At least Misa Mia died how she lived. Aesthetically pleasing. 

What the fuck is even happening in this movie. HE CONFESSED TO HIS DAD TOO. 

"I thought I was going to kill all the bad guys and re good guys would win but it wasn't like that" OH LOOK !! CONVENIENTLY A MORAL !!

and in the end, the white loner character who develops a god complex and goes on a murderous rampage killing hundreds of people and declaring himself god.....gets away with it......but at least he learned a valuable lesson about the nature of good and evil !!!! 

anyway those are my thoughts I hope you liked them !!

[tessatechaitea]

Teen Titans Spotlight #12: Wonder Girl

All Donna has to do is pretend that her grip slip and she's done with this jerk!

Like I'm going to believe Terry Long has any friends!

Look how excited Terry is to show Donna proof that he has a friend! What a sad sack of potatoes! He's worse than Ross from Friends! Donna reads the letter and is all, "This sure looks like your handwriting, Terry." And Terry is all, "As Icki Mudd, I had to learn to write like Captain Midnight! For secret missions!" Donna fingers her lasso of truth while I get distracted from writing this dialogue because I used the verb fingered so here's there actual conversation which is practically the one I was going to write anyway.

Shit is going down!

This is really good Terry Long fan-fiction. Everybody reading comic books forever has always known that Terry Long is a piece of shit. But he's almost constantly written by Marv Wolfman, the one guy who thinks Terry Long is a fucking catch (if I don't say this in a parenthetical reference, somebody else will say it in the comments so "because Terry Long is totally Marv Wolfman"). Moench even makes a point of having Terry Long mention the book he's never going to finish because he keeps expecting Donna to help him with her knowledge of the ancient characters gained through personal relationships. I believe he even loses his professorship due to never finishing the book. And this is why! Because he was just using the idea of it as an excuse to go get drunk with an old friend and maybe jerk each other off like old times.

Arguments Over Breakfast Starring Donna and Terry. I could read an entire series of just this. It's delicious.

Donna walks over to Titans Tower to smash things in the Smash Things Simulator while thinking, "If this man I thought was a sensitive feminist is actually a fucking loser boy in a squishy man's body, what if all men are just as terrible?!" If Donna were a video game character, she would level up five times from this realization. Everybody is selfish but somehow men manage to be even more selfish than women. It's a pretty good feat and I don't know how they accomplish it. Being raised under the Patriarchy, I guess? "But not all men," think the men who are only thinking about themselves and how not selfish they are. The problem is that Terry and Donna can spend a week fucking any time! But when is Terry going to get to fuck his old friend from childhood?! Practically never, that's when! How can Donna blame him for not wanting to miss this opportunity? Would she expect Terry to understand if she had to interrupt a blow job to go save the multiverse?! I don't know if the comparisons track logically but I don't have time to consider my words. Let's move on! While Donna is away, Terry rushes off to El Salvador. I don't know how long Donna is working out her frustrations before she gets back home but it seems to already be too late. Somehow in that time, he's phoned a travel agent, purchased tickets, hailed a cab, got to the airport, waltzed through 1987 security, waited for the flight, boarded, waited on the tarmac due to engine trouble, had to deplane, boarded a new plane, and took off to El Salvador! Donna did have to spend a little time realizing there was a secret Captain Midnight message encoded in the letter that said, "Hey! Fuck up! Stop thinking about jerking me off, you gay! I've been kidnapped by drug lords! Send the Justice League!" but since she thinks, "Bingo! On the first try," after decoding it, I think she could have caught up with Terry at the airport. Don't cancel me over the "you gay" bit in the message from Terry's friend. Remember that they were best friends and this is 1987. We're lucky the entire letter wasn't homosexual references! Once Terry gets to El Salvador, he finds out that his friend, Dennis Heiman, hasn't been in his hotel for a week. So being the great explorer he totally knows he is, Terry marches off into the jungle to find his friend.

"Sure, it's almost certainly a path created by a dangerous creature or armed drug lords but on the super off-chance it is Denny's path, won't he be fucking surprised!"

Terry Long gets caught by some drug lords and now Donna has to save him. Oh man is she going to have some great ammunition for their next fight over breakfast!

Wait. Do they have a running argument about which one of them is most like Tarzan? I just learned more than I wanted about their sex life.

Terry runs for his life while Donna deflects bullets. She doesn't strategically let one that will hit him in the ass get by because she's a better spouse than I would be. But Terry still pays for his matrimonial crimes when he falls in a pit. The good guys with guns who are only running drugs and making their community a dangerous hellhole because they live in poverty run away when they realize that their guns aren't killing Wonder Girl like they're supposed to. What good is a gun if it can't kill the person who should keep minding their own business instead of ruining your livelihood?! Stupid assault rifles! Now that all the people who love guns more than anything aren't reading this because I used the term "assault rifle," it's time for cupcakes! I wish I could pass out cupcakes online. Nothing would bring me more joy than denying people I don't agree with cupcakes. Oh, except maybe the cupcake! Donna follows Terry down the hole and thinks, "Why is this pit here? Oh, I bet it was a secret passageway Mayan priests used to reach the temples and make their 'magical' appearances." So she already knows more about Mayans than Terry does. She realized Terry isn't going to be able to finish the book no matter what the subject is so she's already begun research on the new project he just proposed over that morning's breakfast. But what she finds at the other end of the tunnel is disturbing (but for Marv Wolfman only).

Is this what people online call "fan service"?

I just tore out the last eight pages of the comic book. Does that make the death of Terry Long canon? Teen Titans Spotlight #12: Wonder Girl: A+! I can't believe it! The death of Terry Long! What a bold move to place in an ancillary Teen Titans series! This issue must be worth five figures! Mostly because I have the only copy. It really does read better if you stop at page fourteen. Because who wants to read page fifteen where Terry has to explain to Donna why he hid in the Mayan Beheaded Magic Trick Box? I mean Illusion Box. I bet he was thinking, "Just wait until Donna sees me dead! Then she'll be sorry for getting upset with my misogyny over breakfast! That'll show her! Man, I'm really hard right now!"

Notice how Donna destroys the guns after saying, "Murderers." Checkmate people who say guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Donna might also have killed the guys holding the guns. It's hard to tell because the coloring of the dimly lit cave might just be obscuring the blood and brains that are almost certainly leaking from their bodies. Maybe Batman couldn't kill Joker even after Joker killed Robin but Donna's no Batman. Of course, Terry Long is no Robin (even a Jason Todd Robin). So is he worth Donna killing for? It's a philosophical conundrum that most people will conclude "no" is the proper answer almost immediately. So I might have used the word "conundrum" too rashly. Terry accidentally became trapped in the Mayan Illusion so I guess Donna can't be too angry at him.

Okay, now she can be mad at him.

It looks like Donna's flashing Terry in the above image and he totally frightened by what he's seeing. It is now canon that Wonder Girl's lady parts have blistered tentacles and maybe a small beak. I don't understand Terry's line about girls wearing girdles. Is it a feminist saying? Maybe he just made it up in his terror at seeing her squawking nether regions? The drama isn't finished even though I finished my review a few paragraphs ago. When it becomes so intense that Terry and Donna believe their lives might actually be in danger, the story gets really fucking disgusting.

Oh god. I did not need the image of Terry's boner rubbing against Donna's thighs as he smears his filthy facial hair all over her iron face.

I was being less disgusting than the actual panel by suggesting he was just rubbing his cock against her through their clothing. Upon rereading those narration boxes, I think they actually just fucked. "No time for tenderness" has to be code for a quickie, right? I think the next page is proof of that theory:

Terry puts his dick away as Donna thanks him for the "we almost died" sex. Of special note: Terry thinks you can start a campfire with a condom.

Donna kills a bunch of drug lords in a fiery explosion but she says "They probably all got knocked out by the shockwave!" to assuage her guilty conscience. She's definitely read Batman's best selling book, One Thousand Ways to Convince Yourself and Others That You've Never Killed Anybody. While a lot of the reasons are "If doctors didn't stop the internal bleeding in time, maybe the violent thug should have purchased better insurance that allowed for a better hospital with a more competent staff" and "Dying of complications from losing a spleen to a batarang are completely the fault of the person who didn't take the proper care for a person who is living without a spleen," quite a few of the reasons boil down to "Did you see anybody dead that couldn't have more probably been unconscious when you left the scene? Because I sure didn't and I have bat eyes!" Batman then had to release a follow-up novel due to the reaction of his book on Twitter. He called it, Contrary to Popular and Stupid Opinions, Bats Actually Have Great Eyesight. Anyway, they save Terry's best friend who isn't imaginary at all.

While hanging out with Terry, Donna often entertains herself by thinking stupid jokes.

Teen Titans Spotlight #12: Wonder Girl Rating: F! Terry didn't die after all! Poop!

[ts1989fanatic]

ts1989fanatic Sorry about posting this but it pissed me off so much I had to share it with other or have my head explode. I’m pretty sure I have seen other Daily Beast articles in the past by this same so called writer that were just as critical (WRONGLY) of Taylor Swift.

It’s Time for Taylor Swift to Denounce Her Neo-Nazi Admirers

The pop superstar is worshipped as an ‘Aryan goddess’ by the white supremacist community. In the wake of Charlottesville, the least she could do is speak out.

In a world overrun by the idiotic and underqualified, it’s tempting to credit public figures with nonexistent cunning or forethought.

As nice as it is to imagine that the president of the United States isn’t just “ad-libbing” on North Korea, the facts maintain that there isn’t any sort of political chess at play here—everyone and everything really is as dumb as it seems.

With one exception. In an era of unbridled ids, impetuous boys, and impromptu boasts, there is one woman who is consistently 10 steps ahead: a pop music Machiavelli and Svengali of mutually beneficial relationships who also happens to be a pretty talented EDM scribe.

Naturally we’re talking about Taylor Alison Swift (alias: Nils Sjoberg), a 27-year-old singer-songwriter with a rare talent for self-preservation. Taylor Swift famously maintains strict control over her brand, and has been criticized in the past for her superficiality and attention to detail. From drafting an A-list squad of giraffe-legged pals to threatening to take legal action against some ardent fans on Etsy, Swift seems like a woman who knows exactly what she wants. Taylor Swift might look like a harmless, sugary-sweet pop princess, but make no mistake: This woman keeps Ryan Reynolds’ soul in a calligraphy-labeled Mason jar on her Rhode Island estate. She is not fucking around.

Somehow, through sheer strength of will, Taylor Swift convinced her millions of fans that she was a very sweet and chill girl next door. She realized that feminism was in and began marketing herself as a proponent of girl power, a victim of narcissistic and entitled dudes who would, nevertheless and against all odds, persist. But Swift’s delicate house of vaguely feminist aphorisms and carefully posed lady-Instagrams came tumbling down last summer, when Kim Kardashian outed Swift on Snapchat. The details of that social media checkmate—Swift condemned Kanye’s lyrics, harnessed this victimhood for her public image, was thwarted by leaked footage of Kanye running the track by her in the studio and then reduced to a Notes app statement—are already the stuff of legend. It was the “Kim you’re doing amazing sweetie” heard ’round the world. Unexpectedly pushed into an abyss of unlikability and overexposure, Swift quickly went into crisis/self-imposed exile mode: R.I.P. Hiddleswift, highly publicized squad parties, post-workout crab walks, and the days of underestimating Mrs. Kim Kardashian West.

Luckily for those of us with an appetite for drama and Tracy Flick-style anti-heroines, Taylor Swift plays a long game. Last week, Swift made her first major move since the summer of her Snapchat discontent, testifying in court against former radio DJ David Mueller. The jury ultimately sided with Swift, who alleged that Mueller had “intentionally reached under [Swift’s] skirt, and groped with his hand an intimate part of her body in an inappropriate manner, against her will, and without her permission” during a 2013 meet-and-greet. What happened to Swift was horrible and, as her suit stresses, against her will. But how the pop star chose to present herself in court worked completely to her advantage. When asked about her knowledge of police procedurals, Swift joked about her love of Law & Order: SVU—relatable! When pressed on why no one else witnessed the groping, Swift countered, “Because my ass is located in the back of my body.” Humor, wit, poise, just enough venom and an anatomy lesson to boot? Is it just me, or is 2017 “taking the stand” Taylor Swift actually likable?

At a time when many of us are just barely surviving off a steady diet of revenge fantasies and rage, it makes perfect sense for Swift to rebrand herself a pretty blonde vengeance demon. Why be a saccharine singer-songwriter when you can be an Arya Stark? Likability is so close that TayTay can probably taste it, and I think I’ve come up with a way to finally put her over the edge: All Taylor Swift has to do is denounce neo-Nazis.

Denouncing neo-Nazis might sound like a low bar or a meaningless declaration—if you don’t happen to be rocking a Fred Perry polo and holding a tiki torch your buddy Cole picked up for you at Party City and/or the president of the United States, you should have no problem condemning Nazism. And why should a pop singer have to personally clarify her position on white supremacy? This question would be perfectly valid if we were talking about Selena Gomez, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, or any other major female celebrity who hasn’t been heralded in certain dark corners of the internet as an Aryan princess/secret neo-Nazi. Unfortunately, Taylor Swift has long taken on a starring role in some pretty sick Nazi fan fiction.

In an in-depth 2016 Broadly article, neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer explained Swift’s fashy appeal: “Firstly, Taylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry. Athena reborn. That’s the most important thing,” Anglin insisted. “It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world. Probably, she will be betrothed to Trump’s son, and they will be crowned American royalty.”

Now, it follows that Swift wouldn’t want to dignify these lunatic ravings with a response, or spend any more time than absolutely necessary contemplating a relationship with either of Donald Trump’s large adult sons. But at a certain point—preferably before a white supremacist website publishes dozens of posts praising her Aryan bloodline—it might behoove a celebrity to publicly condemn the racist anti-Semites who are claiming her as their queen. People like Anglin seem to genuinely believe that Swift will be on their side come race war Armageddon. And now that Nazis and counter-protestors are actually fighting in the streets, there’s no time like the present for Taylor Swift to finally come out as anti-Nazi.

After an act of domestic terrorism in Charlottesville left one woman dead, The Daily Stormer—aka Taylor Swift’s unofficial fan site—mocked the victim of the white nationalist attack. For GoDaddy, The Daily Stormer’s obscene and disturbing language was enough to convince them to finally dump the neo-Nazi website. Taylor Swift needs to get in on all this Nazi condemnation action. Why should Jennifer Lawrence get all the likes?

Now, in the past, Swift has scrupulously avoided any sort of political statement. She expresses her “feminism” through sanitized non-statements like, “I’m proud to be a woman today, and every day.” Not only did she refuse to endorse a presidential candidate—she wouldn’t even denounce the candidate who was accused of serial sexual assault. Given Swift’s history of failing to do the bare minimum, and her past swastika mini-scandal, it’s unlikely that she’ll make an anti-Nazi statement. Then again, the bar has never been so low. No one is expecting Taylor Swift to go on the campaign trail for Kamala Harris or exhibit a working knowledge of intersectionality—just to condemn the neo-Nazi community that’s already claimed her as one of their own.

Say it after me, TayTay: “I, Taylor Swift, denounce Nazis. And I am not attracted to Eric Trump.”

ts1989fanatic THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT AND Taylor should ignore this crap.

[sandy-anderson]

2018-10-13 Sat: Letter to Hermann, back in Germany

You said: "Hi Mr. Tai chi, what's going on by you?!  Here is boring and stupid."

Dear Hermann,

Huh!  I'm reading a book about Hermetic Wisdom and it mentions throughout the legendary "Hermes Trismegistus" of ancient Egypt.  Then I notice, when I'm writing your name, "Hermann", and I get to connecting.  (Not so crazy, because I long suspected Arthur and Arcturus to be the same word before discovering that this is indeed the case.)

Arthur! Arcturus!

The Great Bear!

You sound like you need cheering up.  So, here goes...

...Anyway, as I've said before, here in Rome it's damned hard interacting with anyone in any free flowing spontaneous way.  Real way.

"O tempora!  O mores!"

"Oh, the times!  Oh, the ways of behaving!"  -- Cicero

"Hyundai?"

So, in response to the above delightful situation, I discovered this commune, mutual-help place, Sharewood (a pun on Sherwood, the forest that "Robin Hood and his merry men" hide out in, in the good old days of feudal serfdom, that the world is rapidly being steered back toward) in San Lorenzo district.

But, as I say, everything's hard work.  "Hell is other people," as Oscar Wilde quipped.  So, after my initial success last Sunday when someone came up and spoke to me, Monir (a Moroccan-Italian), I've been turning up to Sharewood everyday for the past week in the hope of meeting more real people.  But, whooo-eee, you need infinite patience and forgiveness and understanding... when people just ignore you, don't even look at you when they come in the room.  This is the 2018 way, the mores, of people now.  At Sharewood there's also a strong feminist element.  (Indeed, I've noticed that Doc Martin type boots are all the rage for young women, across all Rome.)  The upshot is, everything takes a seemingly geological amount of time to happen. 

But... I'm gradually raising smiles of familiarity from people there, including the feminists. I've basically been down at the entrance way (out of earshot of the office, study room) all week, playing, practising, Cavaquinho.

So anyway yesterday, finally, Monir, and two of his friends, Andrea & Flavio, show up again. 

I thought in their conversation someone said "pizzicato", which I echoed.  So I was schooled in the phrase "tu sei spiccicato a.... <Donald Trump, say>".  " You're like a copy of..."  Then Flavio asked if I played chess.  So... I was losing disastrously, when I made this one move.  And then we all looked at each other, because we all realized... it was checkmate!  So then we all laughed at this surprising turnaround.

Before they left, I showed Monir the "personal details" section I'd been composing, in English, for my Roma CV.  He already knows I'd like to make an Italian CV.

We both said something about domani, tomorrow, which is now today.

Well, I go round there, today, and... it's not open!  Today or tomorrow actually.  A girl came to the gate and explained there's some kind of internal meeting.   

And now for a poem, Hermann, (which all the above has put me in mind of):

If...

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master; If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

(If... by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936)

-

Anyhoo, so now I go round again, to Sharewood, starting Monday.  "If you can wait and not be tired of waiting..."

I hope this was entertaining.

🐯 Sandy

PS.  I attach a song by the miraculous English poetess-rapper, Kate Tempest, which seems pertinent to... just about everything.