davetheshady

[davetheshady]

“If I had time travel I’d kill Hitler” “If I had time travel I’d stop my favourite politician getting assassinated” you’re all thinking way too small. If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half of the planet.

[davetheshady]

Pedro Friedeberg

‘Silla de cien manos’, 1986

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she’s right

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hey kids did you know that computers didn't used to automatically connect to the internet. it used to make this screaming noise. we should have listened.

[davetheshady]

Justin of the Timber Lake: A mythical figure revered in the early 21st century as the Harbinger of May, thought to be the name of a deity, or possibly some sort of messianic figure

Excerpt from A History of Pre-Contact Earth, published 2903

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The Four Discoursemen

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even a mediocre book can crack your brain open if you have enough fault lines there already when you read it. unfortunately

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Hi, I’m Mel Stanfill. I am a scholar at the University of Central Florida whose research focuses on fan studies, and I want to understand the opinions of media fans about the use of generative AI tools (like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and others), both in general and as part of the creation of works like fan fiction and fan art in particular.

If you would like to share your thoughts, please take this online survey that will take approximately 15-20 minutes and tell me what you think:

Please also reblog to help me get more responses!

[davetheshady]

I love when a meme gets so many steps away from its source material that it would be completely incomprehensible if I didn't know what today's date was

[davetheshady]

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

[davetheshady]

Discworld is the only fantasy setting I know of that opens with The Magic Is Going Away and everyone is just kind of okay with it. Like “Welp, got to move with the times, can’t run a condom factory when there’s elves all over the place”

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the year is 2025

scientists are still scrambling to figure out what “zigazig ahh” is so that they can give the spice girls what they really really want

the spice girls are getting impatient

war is upon us

[davetheshady]

I think this comment on the new live action HTTYD trailer sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well

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[davetheshady]