snl89

[snl89]

You are correct, that's quite literally NOT what he did, at all :)

When you actually watch the over 2 minutes of him very thoughtfully elaborating on his point, he literally specified that he in no way lays claim to any queer identity or queer experience. The point he was making is that he feels like he would be remiss not to acknowledge the influence that the culture which CAME from such experience has had on his life; that so much of the art he's been drawn to his whole life, his inclination to rebel against rigid gender norms and expectations, the way he likes to present himself in the world... they're all informed by a sensibility that IS distinctly queer. He could say he's just "being himself" and leave it at that, but he instead *does* want to pay due respect to the fact that he is allowed to be a cis straight guy who has fun with his gender presentation and loves camp and is drawn to art that pushes against societal gender norms... because those are all things the queer community fought for first.

I think people are having this knee jerk reaction because they hear "culturally queer" and automatically equate it to appropriation, but they're not actually taking a breath to ask: is there NOT a very real element of queer culture that's simply about creating the freedom for everyone to be able to live and express themselves in the way that feels most authentic to them? And if so, why should cis straight people not also get that freedom? That's the whole issue I have with the "queerbaiting" claims Darren's always gotten; to me that just sounds like "how dare a cis straight guy genuinely prefer to present in ways that are traditionally associated with gayness, that's not allowed!!", and it's not cool.

Not him reclaiming the A in LGBTQIA is for Ally 🥲

[snl89]

I agree that the whole argument around the science of the cure is weak, because Joel would have saved Ellie regardless, so it doesn’t really matter what the likelihood of the cure being possible was. 

That said: 

He was still absolutely morally right to save Ellie! Why? Because the Fireflies had no right to treat Ellie like nothing more than a walking science experiment and discard her entire life just because the fungus in her brain might be of benefit to others. I don’t even care if she herself would have gone along with it because she’s so wracked with survivor’s guilt that she doesn’t believe her life is worth more than that either. It’s *wrong* . Her life *does* matter, and it is *valuable* , all on its own. 

Furthermore: For as much as I love the story, I think even Neil and Craig seem to want it to be this big moral trolley problem, and that’s just not what the story is actually presenting. A real trolley problem would be something like if Joel and Ellie’s whole story had been set *prior* to the cordyceps outbreak, and it was somehow determined definitively that the only way to prevent the outbreak would be to kill Ellie, and Joel still saved Ellie. THAT would be him dooming humanity for one person. What we actually have is a story about humanity already being long-since doomed, and Joel saving the life of his surrogate daughter instead of allowing her to be murdered for a world that is absolutely not going to be magically saved just because a cure could, in the best case scenario, technically be made. 

Seriously, let’s think this through for a minute: They murder an innocent girl and a cure is made from her chopped up brain, okay. Beneficial to know it can be done? Certainly! .... Now what? In what possible way are they going to mass produce and effectively distribute it? And even if they somehow managed to do *that* , what, like taking the infection out of the picture is suddenly going to reverse the complete breakdown of all societal structure that occurred 20 years ago?? Like the world is suddenly going to become un-broken because one single issue in a massive mountain of issues was resolved? Quite frankly, the infected are not even the biggest issue, let alone the only one, by the time we pick up the story 20 years in! We have Jackson as the proof that the infected are not that huge an obstacle to rebuilding society. Sure, they’re a threat, not saying the cure wouldn’t be very helpful - but there are very doable ways of dealing with them and rebuilding. The reason society’s still so broken 20 years in is because NON-infected people are so broken. You know, like the Fireflies being so detached from their humanity that they’ve convinced themselves child murder is great, actually, if it means they can call themselves the “saviors of the world”. That willingness to become cold, heartless, calculating robots *is the brokenness the world needs saving from* . 

(And to clarify, I know Joel wasn’t taking the time and thinking all this through in the moment! But it is baked into the very nature of the trauma that drives him. Sarah did not die because of the infection; she died because of the broken, messed up NON-infected society of people who responded to the fungal threat by jumped straight to murdering innocents under the guise of it being “for the greater good”. He’s literally been here before. Why WOULD he ever buy into the idea that the thing that will fix the world is to let it happen again?) 

So, TL:DR (for this truly massive rant, sorry!): Joel was right. Whether the cure was possible or not, it was never going to un-break the world, and the only way TO un-break it would be for humanity to stop wanting to do a child murder to get there and instead focus on *protecting each other* . Like Joel did. Because Ellie doesn’t owe the broken world sh** , let alone her entire life, and has a right to live like everyone else does. 

joel apologists from tlou annoy me cause they keep trying to justify joel’s actions with science and that’s not the point. like joel and everyone thought they could make a cure by killing ellie and joel decided to rob the world of the cure. REGARDLESS on whether or not you could’ve made a cure or not he still decided that he cared more about ellie than possibly saving the world of this zombie virus. like, stop trying to do these “well technicallys” when that’s not the point. the point is that joel made a selfish decision when saving ellie

AND THATS OKAY!

like i’m on joel’s side, REGARDLESS IF A CURE COULDVE BEEN MADE OR NOT. like what joel did was wrong

BUT THAT MAKES HIS CHARACTER BETTER!!!!!!

[snl89]

You know, I’m not necessarily going to say he didn’t come around to thinking a cure could be a possibility once he realized Ellie was the real deal in with her immunity, but there’s another connected point I think is really important: 

Even if he did believe a cure could be possible, it’s inherent to his experience of the pandemic that he would never think of a potential cure as the end-all-be-all thing that will save the world life Marlene and Ellie do. Because even if it were to be possible, for as beneficial as that would be... Joel’s greatest loss wasn’t from Sarah getting infected. She could have been fine. It was the NON-infected people, and their complete disregard of everything worth preserving about humanity in the face of the world ending, that killed her. And it’s true: undoubtedly a cure would be very helpful, but its existence alone could never save humanity. And that doesn’t even have to be a nihilistic worldview: you don’t have to believe it *can’t* be saved, to recognize that doing so is going to require a whole lot more than just the discovery of how to make a vaccine. It’s going to take a whole lot more community like the one thriving in Jackson - people willing to trust each other and prioritize taking care of each other, and working together to build a network that can mass produce the cure and distribute it, and then rebuild society as they know it. 

All discussion of the science stuff aside, that *social* organization would have to be in place and strong before it would ever be beneficial to have a cure on hand. Because, sure, they do a sacrificial murder and get the cure... and then what? What possible structure is there in place to make that mean anything? Because as that world is, there’s no chance in hell they’re going to be able to get it to people or make any meaningful difference with it, so it would all be for naught. 

And like you said, I know Joel wasn’t in any way thinking through all that when he went scorched earth to get to Ellie, but I just think it speaks the different traumas at play here: For both Marlene and Ellie, theirs were deeply tied to having watched the infection destroy people they loved, and even having to kill them because of it. For them, they’re so caught up in the idea of “if there had only been a cure, that wouldn’t have had to happen to the people I loved” that the cure becomes the end all be all for them; THE thing that will save humanity. Because that’s what would have saved *their* worlds. But it wouldn’t have saved his world when his world was Sarah, so why would he ever prioritize it over the person who had become his world now? 

in the second episode, when ellie wakes up to tess and joel watching her sleep, waiting for her to change, joel says something i think a lot of people forget about. they ask ellie why she is so important and she tells them she's the key to finding the vaccine - and joel gets angry.

"they never work"

joel never believed a cure was possible. people tried, they failed. for twenty years. and the fireflies probably tried and failed before ellie. so if you think joel thought even for a second that a cure was possible, that he was choosing between the world and his world, no he wasn't.

he finished it because ellie asked him to, joel would have gone back to jackson the second she had agreed. and yes, i know whether or not it would have worked is not the point, that joel still acted selfishly and out of love, that it wasn't even a choice he made. he loves her. he needs to save her. it's that simple for him. but the fact that joel never believed that it was possible made it oh so much easier for him to say fuck it.

[snl89]

Just putting out there that even as someone who’s only watched the movie-style edit on youtube, I don’t hate Abby and certainly never rooted for Ellie to kill her! 

I hate what she DID, I wish I could go into the story and make her understand that killing Joel would not bring her dad back or bring her any peace of mind, and beg her not to ever go to Jackson ... but that’s exactly how I feel about Ellie in Part 2 too! And Abby’s journey with Yara and Lev, like Joel and Elile’s in Part 1, is beautiful and very needed in such a largely bleak story. 

Sorry this will probably be a long side rant haha, but I just have to vent:

I think the thing that does make it a little hard for me with Abby and her dad, which is really just a larger issue that I have with the way Joel’s choice was framed in Part 2 in general, is knowing that the whole reason Joel did what he did was because they were about to *sacrificially murder his surrogate daughter* , and none of them (including Abby) had absolutely any moral issue with that because, hey, THEY would all get to live in the better world they created by taking a young girl’s life!  The more I think on just how absolutely f**ked up that is, the more I just cannot comprehend for the life of me how *anyone* could do that and think they’re the good guys! How they could ever possibly expect that that girl’s surrogate father *wouldn’t* do what any parent would do and use any means necessary to stop their child from being murdered. 

And don’t get me wrong, I completely get that trauma has nothing to do with logic, and her dad’s culpability in the whole thing has nothing to do with the fact that Abby was deeply, deeply traumatized by what Joel took from her. 

Rationally, I know she was driven and blinded by pain and have no problem holding space for that. But it just really bothers me the more I think about it that the story overall never really allows Joel or anyone else to give voice to the reality of what the Fireflies were about to do. Not in Abby reflecting on it before or after what she does, not in Ellie starting to work through her survivor’s guilt and realize her life DOES matter on its own terms and that’s why Joel protected it... nothing, other than what’s implied by Joel’s “if I had the chance, I’d do it all over again”, which for me does hold so much of that weight, and is so beautiful, but I really wish it had been stated outright for what it was: he “doomed the world” because what the Fireflies were going to do was murder; that Ellie DID have the right to live, and they’d had no right to take that from her no matter how many others might have gotten to live because of it. 

So it’s just hard for me to fully feel for Abby in the depth I do for Ellie, because fundamentally I have such a massive problem with ALL the Fireflies for trying to pass something despicable off as “the right thing”. 

But I can separate that from the fact that of course Abby wasn’t in a place to be thinking any of that through, or reckoning with the morality of what the group she was with had been doing. She was deeply traumatized by her father’s death, and had convinced herself that if she could just kill the man who did it, that would help her find peace and move on. Just as Ellie did with her after Joel’s death. I can still understand that, it’s just a barrier to my being able to connect with her on the same level I do Joel and Ellie. 

i genuinely don’t understand people who don’t like abby and have actually played the game. it doesn’t count if you’ve watched a play through on youtube because to truly understand a character you need to play as them. abby is a complete parallel to ellie, the bs excuses that ‘abby made ellie watch’ or ‘joel didn’t deserve it’ is so false. abby didn’t MAKE ellie watch, she even spared her and tommy after convincing from owen. the only difference between them is abby trained 5 years to kill joel, did it and then felt no difference. ellie killed everyone but abby and never felt any different and knew that she still wouldn’t after she killed abby. we knew abby regretted killing joel. she has development, you like her when you first meet her, then think wth why and then understand her. if you don’t understand her then just don’t play tlou.

[snl89]

“In the end, Joel did not go on that rampage to protect Ellie and her autonomy. He went on that rampage to save himself and protect the only light that had made him feel alive in 20 years.“ 

But part of him seeing her as his light is that he values her life as WORTH protecting. That’s why I can’t get behind this idea that he was acting purely selfishly; is the implication then that parental love - the love that would make pretty much ANY parent do what Joel did - is always strictly the parent wanting to protect their own feelings? No, that drive is because parents inherently feel that their children are lights in the world worth protecting that fiercely.

So yes, of course Joel was saving himself in the process too. Of course in saving Ellie he was preventing himself from having to go through the unbearable pain of losing her. But the reason it would have caused him so much pain to lose her is *because* he feels her value in the world so strongly that he can’t see it being worth living in if she’s not in it. 

The argument that he wouldn’t have been thinking through the likelihood of a cure working, and would have saved her no matter what so it doesn’t matter? That’s very valid. But him valuing her life enough to save it, even when she’s not there herself yet, doesn’t NEED to be something he specifically thought through in the moment. It’s not that he was literally standing there thinking through all the reasons she was in no position to be making a choice like that as a traumatized kid with severe survivor’s guilt and passive suicidality, let alone the fact that the Fireflies weren’t even going to attempt to ask her. It’s that all of that is inherent in his drive to protect someone worth protecting. She would have said yes, because she doesn’t at this point in time believe her life matters if she can’t give the world a cure. Joel, like any good parent, knows her life matters no matter what. 

Now, his lying to Ellie’s face about it? THAT was self preservation, it’s true. It’s very human, I get it, but yeah, that to me is far more the source of moral ambiguity than anything about his decision to save Ellie in itself. 

"You deserve a choice"

At the time when Joel said it to Ellie the choice was between him and Tommy and who she would prefer to escort her to the end of her journey. As a viewer we're not really meant to think that she'll actually choose Tommy. Of course she's going to choose Joel, and through this action we see them reaffirm that they're going to stand by eachother even though they're not perfect.

But it wasn't really about that.

"You deserve a choice", except in the end they took away from her in the hospital. Marlene insisted that Ellie would have wanted to sacrifice herself at a chance of finding a cure (stupid btw, the show also makes it clear that doctors are bad and stupid now but anyway). Marlene is using this as a manipulation tactic, but also, Joel still chooses for Ellie and lies to her.

In the end, Joel did not go on that rampage to protect Ellie and her autonomy. He went on that rampage to save himself and protect the only light that had made him feel alive in 20 years.

[snl89]

"joel took away ellie's choice"- damn it's almost like he knew they were both gonna just end up killed.. it's almost like he had no choice either and the fireflies were always gonna kill her with or without her knowledge. it's almost like ellie is a child who does not deserve the weight of the world on her shoulders like this. it's almost like her survivors guilt and unresolved trauma is what drives her to feel as if her entire life needs to end to compensate for those she's lost; it's almost like joel indulging ellie's martyrdom is a far worse thing than saving her on the chance she doesn't want to die. it's almost like she genuinely was never in the right conditions to consent to begin with and was never going to have the chance to regardless. idk

[snl89]

Yeah, what’s weird to me is how people seem to feel like they can’t defend Joel without making everyone else out to be “the bad guys”! Because like.. .I will defend the *hell* out of Joel and his choice to save Ellie! And not even just in a “it was messed up and wrong, but I sympathize with why he did it”; no, I think it was the morally right thing to do, even if in the moment his motivations were pretty much entirely “I will not lose another daughter.” That selfish love was still the right human call. 

AND: Of course I also understand where the other characters are coming from! I had my frustrations with Marlene in the game because she came across so cold and morally righteous to me, but the show did her a lot better, and of course in general I don’t doubt for a second that she genuinely believed she was doing the right thing. And I sympathize with Abby and why she does what she does, even while I absolutely hate that she does it. 

It’s not like you have to see Joel as a terrible, villainous person to understand that, for reasons we can see as (at least more or less) valid, he did some really horrific sh** that made him the root of pain in the lives of the people whose loved ones he killed. Joel *himself* wouldn’t argue that point! The fact that he’s so human is what makes me love him so much as a character; that there is so much in him that’s good and loving and lovable, but also he’s a deeply traumatized person who does some really messy and messed up stuff, because sometimes trauma can cause people to do that! That’s why the cycle of pain and violence exists. 

I’m reading the tlou tag and honestly I’m so nervous for season 2/3 because it’s already happening. People are already unhealthy attaching themselves to Joel, creating weirdly aggressive anti-Marlene threads, and removing all the nuance and grey from this story to turn into a black and white story in which Joel is an unproblematic hero and everyone else is a villain. And I just know these people are going to lose their minds at what comes next and all that misplaced love is going to turn to frothing hatred again because people don’t understand tlou isn’t meant to be a feel good story about someone getting redeemed by becoming a dad again. It’s going to be just as bad if not as worse as when the TLOU part 2 came out.

[snl89]

See, the thing is, though: she’s a severely traumatized child who feels like she doesn’t deserve to still be living because so many of the people she’s cared for have been killed by this infection she gets to go on living with. So of course she would want them to kill her, because she’s not at a point yet where it COULD be a genuine choice! Until she can reach a place where she understands that her life does in fact matter on its own terms, and that it would be a genuine option to say no, even if they had woken her up and asked her, it would just be exploiting her survivor’s guilt. 

And I get that that can feel a bit morally murky, rejecting Ellie’s direct say in the matter, but I just truly don’t believe it would be right to exploit the fact that she feels her life doesn’t matter if she’s not the sacrificial lamb. And Joel gave her the time to be able to come to that understanding for herself, even if it takes some years for her to get there. 

For me, it’s just the fact that he so straight up lies to her about it that makes me sad. I get it, of course, he does it because he knows she’ll be furious with him and things might never be the same between them if she knows, but still, it’s such a breach of trust 😔 

Honestly (at least through the lens of the show) the only part of Joel saving Ellie that I have a problem with is the fact that deep down he knows she wouldn’t have wanted him to. I say this as someone who 100% wants Joel to save her and understand why he did and loves that he did. But the fact that even she wouldn’t want to be saved really does solidify how selfish this was of Joel. He saved Ellie because he loves her but it was also so much that he just couldn’t lose another daughter. He saved Ellie to save himself.

[snl89]

TLOU finale ramble

Holy moly did TLOU nail that finale!! 😭

Rambly thoughts: 

- Every new scene/moment they added was SO, so good. The Anna flashback with Ashley Johnson? Incredible! Joel being now so open with Ellie that he’d even tell her about his suicide attempt? My freaking heeeart 💔 And even just Ellie confirming that she did in fact have to kill Riley 😔 So yeah, just... I am in awe of just how well done this show is, and how they took already fantastic source material and made it even better with just a few small moments that add so much depth. 

- I will say, Marlene frustrated me a LOT less than in the game, which does have the intended effect of making it harder to stomach Joel’s massacre (and pheeeew baby, they did NOT skimp on the brutality of what he did!) In the game, Marlene was just so freaking cold and self righteous and lecture-y to Joel. I was like “girl, what the hell are you doing telling him the equivalent of ‘suck it up and deal, we’ve all lost people’!?! There is no way you can’t tell this girl a daughter to him now!” (And *especially* then when we see in Part 2 how she’s resistant to it herself and asking Abby’s dad if it would be so easy for him to sacrifice Abby, it just made me go “where the hell was that compassion with Joel!?”) But yeah, show Marlene, while I still do not agree with her and the Fireflies, was a lot less cold about it and I genuinely buy that she was in a lot of pain about what she was having to do too, so I think that was a much better way to hammer home the very grey morality of the situation. 

- With all of the above said? I still fall largely on Joel’s side! Not only because I sympathize so much with why he did it, but because I just refuse to accept utilitarianism that extreme that it's used to justify killing a child for the greater good. I don’t care if it was even a 100% certainty that they’d be able to make the vaccine; if the “cure” for humanity requires you to kill a kid without their knowledge, let alone consent, and threaten to kill their surrogate parent if they don’t leave and allow you to do it, then it’s not. a cure. worth. having. We don’t save humanity by giving up that which makes us human and not cold, calculating utilitarian robots. 

And in that moment, I don’t think Joel was specifically thinking about all of that; all he was thinking was that HELL NO he was not about to lose Ellie too, and lord help any MFer who got in his way of saving her. But that’s kind of the point: the selfishness of love IS what makes us human, and I for one wouldn’t have it otherwise. And yes, I stand by that even knowing Ellie would have let them do it; because she was a young girl with severe survivor’s guilt and trauma, and she freaking deserved the chance that Joel gave her to get to LIVE and work through that trauma before dying for the rest of the world. Her life DOES matter on its own terms, and she had a right to come to understand that for herself before being asked to make that kind of sacrifice. 

[snl89]

Amber apologists in a nutshell: 

Someone: Gives them the literal hour-long audio recording of Amber repeatedly referring to her physically violent behavior and calling Johnny a baby for not wanting to be hit and have things thrown at him

Apologist: But, but JD being a man means he has omnipresent power over every single person, institution, and piece of evidence, it’s all a giant conspiracy because Woman! Weak! Man! Strong! #FEMINISM! and look at the other meanies who are also saying Amber’s bad!!1! 

Yeah babe, I’m well aware there are some really sh**ty people who will use Amber’s behavior as an opportunity to start going after other women. I’m well aware there are angry, misogynistic men who think feminism is about ruining men’s lives. That’s why I’d REALLY freaking appreciate it if y’all would stop giving them reason to think they’re right. 

Seriously, do you get how angering it is to see alt right knobs whose politics I hate talk about how no matter how much evidence a male DV survivor shows, so many feminists and the media will still bend over backwards protecting the abusive woman, and have to acknowledge that they’re RIGHT? To hear them wax poetic about how much women are protected over men, and then have to sit there and watch “progressives” live up to all their misconceptions? 

So I’ll say this, and then I’m fully done:

Have your shitty abuse-enabling misandrist worldview if you really must, but for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE stop posting it online for angry men to use as further radicalization fodder and calling it feminism. The jury holding an abusive woman accountable is not “harmful to women”. This sh** is. 

Depp v. Heard rant

Super random return to Tumblr after what I think must be years! But having fallen down the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard rabbit hole, I’m seeing some Amber apologists on here posting the ultra gaslighting bits of Rottenborn’s closing without allowing comments, so I just felt compelled to come on and make my own comment to say: 

“If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures, they’re fake. If you didn’t tell your friends, you weren’t injured. If you did tell your friends, they were part of the hoax.“ 

That is Not. TF. what we (or Camille) are saying. And it was unbelievably insulting and gross for him to frame it that way.

The reason what Amber’s done makes me so angry is because I DON’T assume anyone would lie about having suffered abuse, ever. I have argued vehemently against misogynists who DO treat women who come forward as lying until proven otherwise. So no, sir, I do not appreciate being lectured about how I’m harming women when it took the absolute mountain of evidence of her NOT being truthful to pull me away from that default. I don’t appreciate being gaslit for being upset that someone would take advantage of that default that the 99% of survivors who would never dream of lying about the abuse they’ve suffered fought, and continue to fight, so hard for. 

This is not about “if it happened you should have pictures.” This is about there being a mountain of photos, videos, and recordings proving that the incredibly severe, specific allegations she sat there recounting in gruesome detail under oath never happened. 

This is about her sitting there swearing up and down under oath that the video we all saw with our own two eyes of her completely uninjured, was her with two black eyes and a busted lip after having been brutally beaten in the face by a man who wears the equivalent of brass knuckles in rings. Not “the abuse wasn’t the type you would see in this video” - but specifically “yes, I had severe facial injuries in this video where my face looks flawless.” This is about her having carefully documented all manner of OTHER photos and videos exploiting Johnny’s struggles with addiction, and insisting that the harm he did to himself is somehow evidence of him having brutally, severely harmed her, while deliberately having avoided taken photos of herself after the alleged most severe attacks. 

No one. is saying. that the abuse has to be severe in order for it to count. No one is expecting survivors to have documented everything. SHE made the allegations so severe that they don’t match up with the reality we see. SHE made it impossible to believe she wasn’t sitting there this whole time appropriating the very real suffering others have had to go through. 

So to the survivors out there (especially women, for purposes of this discussion): 

I can’t control what others do, but please know that I believe you, and will NEVER expect any bar of proof to do so. It took a heaping mountain of proof I could see and hear with my own eyes and ears that Amber IS lying - Amber, one single woman out of the 99% who would never dream of doing so - to make me not believe her. And her lies will never make waver in standing by you. I will always believe women, and I’ll continue to call out anyone using this trial as an excuse to do otherwise. 

I just don’t believe Amber. One specific privileged cis white woman who coopted a necessary, hard-fought feminist movement as a shield for her abusive behavior. 

/// massive rant

[snl89]

Yeah, you’ll never hold an abusive woman accountable, I got that. 

And no“because Amber says so” isn’t “debunking”. Yeah, I’m aware she exploited his addiction actions and the harm he did to himself to insist that’s “proof” that he was the most horrific monster ever. It’s disgusting, damaging to people battling addiction, and even more so considering she has substantial substance abuse issues of her own but didn’t bother to mention that little detail. 

You say “youtube videos” like I’m referencing some random commentator’s opinion. I’m referencing the AUDIO RECORDINGS of Amber herself. 

Like this one: https://youtu.be/aca0KWoHtqQ 

Where she gaslights the hell out of him, lectures him about how her hitting him couldn’t *possibly* have hurt him, and plainly acknowledges she’s the one who starts physical fights, and literally the ONLY reason she gives is that she hates that he splits.

Over, and over, and over again, right there on recording, her problem is that he splits. Mostly when she gets crazy and starts hitting and throwing things. NOT that she knows when he does he’ll come back and beat her up - in fact her insecurity is that she’s afraid he won’t come back at all. And the one single mention of anything Johnny did physically in that whole recording, where they explicitly talked through past physical altercations? He pushed her back when SHE started attacking HIM. 

He says “there can be no physical violence”. She says “I can’t promise that. I get crazy.” If you can hear that and still defend the abuser, there is nothing that will ever be enough for you to hold an abusive woman accountable. NO ONE would be defending any man who was on recording having said that to a woman, and rightly so. 

I am genuinely so sorry for the abuse you’ve gone through. That’s awful. It’s WHY I’m so furious that this one privileged cis white woman appropriated others’ real pain as a weapon to continue abusing her ex husband. 

Her allegations were not that he slapped her. She sat there swearing under oath that THIS: 

Was her with two black eyes, a split lip, and what she assumed was a broken nose. SPECIFICALLY those injuries. 

But of course you’re going to tell yourself your eyes are lying because Amber says so. Who needs reality anyway, right? Don’t be insulted she would do this, don’t speak up about how it harms people who have actually experienced the abuse she appropriated, just keep defending the abuser because she’s a woman! #Feminism! 

And the phone thing was more a side note - the primary emphasis was on the fact that the audio recording from that day literally makes it impossible that she wasn’t lying under oath. If ABSOLUTELY nothing else, we have audio proof that she was very much awake and aware of what had happened to his finger during the time she claims she was asleep and had no idea. But yes, also a wall phone would be a landline, which requires a cable, so when photos show no sign whatsoever that a cable was ever anywhere near where she claims the assault took place, that’s pretty notable. But yeah, nice job skirting around the fact that she provably lied under oath.

Bet it’s just those darn lying eyes of yours again telling you these are the exact same photo that she submitted in a court of law as two different ones too, huh? She says they’re different, so who cares about reality and holding people accountable for lying! She’s a WOMAN, after all! 

Depp v. Heard rant

Super random return to Tumblr after what I think must be years! But having fallen down the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard rabbit hole, I’m seeing some Amber apologists on here posting the ultra gaslighting bits of Rottenborn’s closing without allowing comments, so I just felt compelled to come on and make my own comment to say: 

“If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures, they’re fake. If you didn’t tell your friends, you weren’t injured. If you did tell your friends, they were part of the hoax.“ 

That is Not. TF. what we (or Camille) are saying. And it was unbelievably insulting and gross for him to frame it that way.

The reason what Amber’s done makes me so angry is because I DON’T assume anyone would lie about having suffered abuse, ever. I have argued vehemently against misogynists who DO treat women who come forward as lying until proven otherwise. So no, sir, I do not appreciate being lectured about how I’m harming women when it took the absolute mountain of evidence of her NOT being truthful to pull me away from that default. I don’t appreciate being gaslit for being upset that someone would take advantage of that default that the 99% of survivors who would never dream of lying about the abuse they’ve suffered fought, and continue to fight, so hard for. 

This is not about “if it happened you should have pictures.” This is about there being a mountain of photos, videos, and recordings proving that the incredibly severe, specific allegations she sat there recounting in gruesome detail under oath never happened. 

This is about her sitting there swearing up and down under oath that the video we all saw with our own two eyes of her completely uninjured, was her with two black eyes and a busted lip after having been brutally beaten in the face by a man who wears the equivalent of brass knuckles in rings. Not “the abuse wasn’t the type you would see in this video” - but specifically “yes, I had severe facial injuries in this video where my face looks flawless.” This is about her having carefully documented all manner of OTHER photos and videos exploiting Johnny’s struggles with addiction, and insisting that the harm he did to himself is somehow evidence of him having brutally, severely harmed her, while deliberately having avoided taken photos of herself after the alleged most severe attacks. 

No one. is saying. that the abuse has to be severe in order for it to count. No one is expecting survivors to have documented everything. SHE made the allegations so severe that they don’t match up with the reality we see. SHE made it impossible to believe she wasn’t sitting there this whole time appropriating the very real suffering others have had to go through. 

So to the survivors out there (especially women, for purposes of this discussion): 

I can’t control what others do, but please know that I believe you, and will NEVER expect any bar of proof to do so. It took a heaping mountain of proof I could see and hear with my own eyes and ears that Amber IS lying - Amber, one single woman out of the 99% who would never dream of doing so - to make me not believe her. And her lies will never make waver in standing by you. I will always believe women, and I’ll continue to call out anyone using this trial as an excuse to do otherwise. 

I just don’t believe Amber. One specific privileged cis white woman who coopted a necessary, hard-fought feminist movement as a shield for her abusive behavior. 

/// massive rant

[snl89]

You realize if you say you think it’s possible that a woman can be an abuser, and then turn around and cry misogyny on one of the clearest cases we’re ever going to get of a woman having coopted the name of feminism and DV survivorship to continue abusing her husband, you don’t actually believe it, right? 

If you actually do, then great! Go listen to the recordings of her abusing and gaslighting him and refusing to let him leave. Go watch her sit on the stand telling detailed, horrific stories of the most brutal beatings - specifically black eyes, split lip, broken nose - and then boldly tell us all our eyes are lying to us when we see pictures of her from the next day with not a single injury in sight. Watch her get stone cold caught lying about having given away millions of dollars of money she still very much has after claiming she “wanted nothing” from the divorce. 

Actually WATCH the trial. Stop covering your eyes and ears and yelling “misogyny!”, and come back and redact your apologia for a woman who literally could not have been more obviously lying to abuse her ex husband.

It’s not extremely rare for women to be abusive in general, but you ARE absolutely right that it’s very rare for people to make false allegations. Even most abusive people aren’t that low. 

THIS case, right here, is that extreme rarity. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to stop enabling an abuser because she’s a woman, or not? 

And ooooh boy, you want to talk bullshit? Let’s go. 

https://youtu.be/RcKfBIu8jQs

Watch the full video if you want to see just how extreme her allegations were, but here’s the basic summary of her testimony about the finger:

She claims during this absolutely brutal, horrific night of assault, he obliterated a phone on the wall (which photos of the house indicate never existed, for the record) with his hand, she went up and fell asleep for hours, and then woke up to find him with his hand in rags and asked “what did you do? when?” and then pieced together that it must have been from the phone. 

So the key point is: she claims under oath she had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it, and didn’t even realize what had happened until after she woke up the next day. 

So I’d LOVE to hear your rational, then, for how THIS audio recording exists of her very much awake, apologizing profusely and saying ‘poor Johnny! I never meant to hurt him! I didn’t do it on purpose! He needs me right now! He needs me!” (oh, and also walking around in clunky heels right after her feet were allegedly slashed up by broken glass) 

But by all means, don’t believe those lying ears of yours! Johnny definitely fabricated a whole hours-long recording out of thin air because he’s just soooo omnipresently powerful, and that’s DEFINITELY way more likely and believable than it is that Amber committed what is a serious crime in Australia (look up “glassing”) and lied about it, amiright? 

Depp v. Heard rant

Super random return to Tumblr after what I think must be years! But having fallen down the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard rabbit hole, I’m seeing some Amber apologists on here posting the ultra gaslighting bits of Rottenborn’s closing without allowing comments, so I just felt compelled to come on and make my own comment to say: 

“If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures, they’re fake. If you didn’t tell your friends, you weren’t injured. If you did tell your friends, they were part of the hoax.“ 

That is Not. TF. what we (or Camille) are saying. And it was unbelievably insulting and gross for him to frame it that way.

The reason what Amber’s done makes me so angry is because I DON’T assume anyone would lie about having suffered abuse, ever. I have argued vehemently against misogynists who DO treat women who come forward as lying until proven otherwise. So no, sir, I do not appreciate being lectured about how I’m harming women when it took the absolute mountain of evidence of her NOT being truthful to pull me away from that default. I don’t appreciate being gaslit for being upset that someone would take advantage of that default that the 99% of survivors who would never dream of lying about the abuse they’ve suffered fought, and continue to fight, so hard for. 

This is not about “if it happened you should have pictures.” This is about there being a mountain of photos, videos, and recordings proving that the incredibly severe, specific allegations she sat there recounting in gruesome detail under oath never happened. 

This is about her sitting there swearing up and down under oath that the video we all saw with our own two eyes of her completely uninjured, was her with two black eyes and a busted lip after having been brutally beaten in the face by a man who wears the equivalent of brass knuckles in rings. Not “the abuse wasn’t the type you would see in this video” - but specifically “yes, I had severe facial injuries in this video where my face looks flawless.” This is about her having carefully documented all manner of OTHER photos and videos exploiting Johnny’s struggles with addiction, and insisting that the harm he did to himself is somehow evidence of him having brutally, severely harmed her, while deliberately having avoided taken photos of herself after the alleged most severe attacks. 

No one. is saying. that the abuse has to be severe in order for it to count. No one is expecting survivors to have documented everything. SHE made the allegations so severe that they don’t match up with the reality we see. SHE made it impossible to believe she wasn’t sitting there this whole time appropriating the very real suffering others have had to go through. 

So to the survivors out there (especially women, for purposes of this discussion): 

I can’t control what others do, but please know that I believe you, and will NEVER expect any bar of proof to do so. It took a heaping mountain of proof I could see and hear with my own eyes and ears that Amber IS lying - Amber, one single woman out of the 99% who would never dream of doing so - to make me not believe her. And her lies will never make waver in standing by you. I will always believe women, and I’ll continue to call out anyone using this trial as an excuse to do otherwise. 

I just don’t believe Amber. One specific privileged cis white woman who coopted a necessary, hard-fought feminist movement as a shield for her abusive behavior. 

/// massive rant

[snl89]

Checks out that the TERFs would be all over defending an abusive woman. Of course they would. 

Anyway, looking past your nonsense assumptions about where I’m coming from with this: 

Yes, I don’t doubt at all that the fallout from Amber’s behavior is already doing harm to other women. It’s awful. It’s why I’m so furious she did it, and those survivors need to be protected. Genuinely, if anyone knows of resources or ways to help women whose abusers will take advantage of this case, please do let me know! 

I absolutely want to help anyone harmed by this case. What I WILL NOT do is make excuses for the person whose behavior prompted this backlash in the first place. You are not going to guilt me into appropriating the name of feminism to use it as a shield for protecting abusive privileged women (or as a weapon to attack trans people with, but that’s its own important subject). 

I believe Johnny was abused because I listened to the gd audio recordings of Amber mocking him for asking her to stop hitting and throwing things at him, and following after him as he tried repeatedly to deescalate and get away. Because she sat there telling the entire public our eyes are lying to us about what we see in photos and videos, and expecting us to believe she doesn’t understand the difference between a pledge and a donation. Because the ONLY one who came out of the relationship with permanent bodily damage is Johnny, from when she threw a freaking heavy glass vodka bottle at him and it cut off a big chunk of his finger. 

I am not the one who bought into a false media campaign, babe. I watched the trial. You did not. You refuse to comprehend that it is possible for a woman to be abusive in the first place, so why would you? A (cis) woman could kill her husband for all you care, and you’d probably delude yourself into thinking she had a right to do it by virtue of her chromosomes or whatnot. 

You really have absolutely no clue the danger you are putting women in by giving such fodder for misogynistic men to be further radicalized with, do you? You have no idea the harm it does when you coopt feminism to spread abuse enabling, misandrist, patriarchal gender norms “men can’t be abused” BS that gives woman-hating men reason to think their gross worldview is justified. 

Depp v. Heard rant

Super random return to Tumblr after what I think must be years! But having fallen down the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard rabbit hole, I’m seeing some Amber apologists on here posting the ultra gaslighting bits of Rottenborn’s closing without allowing comments, so I just felt compelled to come on and make my own comment to say: 

“If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures, they’re fake. If you didn’t tell your friends, you weren’t injured. If you did tell your friends, they were part of the hoax.“ 

That is Not. TF. what we (or Camille) are saying. And it was unbelievably insulting and gross for him to frame it that way.

The reason what Amber’s done makes me so angry is because I DON’T assume anyone would lie about having suffered abuse, ever. I have argued vehemently against misogynists who DO treat women who come forward as lying until proven otherwise. So no, sir, I do not appreciate being lectured about how I’m harming women when it took the absolute mountain of evidence of her NOT being truthful to pull me away from that default. I don’t appreciate being gaslit for being upset that someone would take advantage of that default that the 99% of survivors who would never dream of lying about the abuse they’ve suffered fought, and continue to fight, so hard for. 

This is not about “if it happened you should have pictures.” This is about there being a mountain of photos, videos, and recordings proving that the incredibly severe, specific allegations she sat there recounting in gruesome detail under oath never happened. 

This is about her sitting there swearing up and down under oath that the video we all saw with our own two eyes of her completely uninjured, was her with two black eyes and a busted lip after having been brutally beaten in the face by a man who wears the equivalent of brass knuckles in rings. Not “the abuse wasn’t the type you would see in this video” - but specifically “yes, I had severe facial injuries in this video where my face looks flawless.” This is about her having carefully documented all manner of OTHER photos and videos exploiting Johnny’s struggles with addiction, and insisting that the harm he did to himself is somehow evidence of him having brutally, severely harmed her, while deliberately having avoided taken photos of herself after the alleged most severe attacks. 

No one. is saying. that the abuse has to be severe in order for it to count. No one is expecting survivors to have documented everything. SHE made the allegations so severe that they don’t match up with the reality we see. SHE made it impossible to believe she wasn’t sitting there this whole time appropriating the very real suffering others have had to go through. 

So to the survivors out there (especially women, for purposes of this discussion): 

I can’t control what others do, but please know that I believe you, and will NEVER expect any bar of proof to do so. It took a heaping mountain of proof I could see and hear with my own eyes and ears that Amber IS lying - Amber, one single woman out of the 99% who would never dream of doing so - to make me not believe her. And her lies will never make waver in standing by you. I will always believe women, and I’ll continue to call out anyone using this trial as an excuse to do otherwise. 

I just don’t believe Amber. One specific privileged cis white woman who coopted a necessary, hard-fought feminist movement as a shield for her abusive behavior. 

/// massive rant

[snl89]

Depp v. Heard rant

Super random return to Tumblr after what I think must be years! But having fallen down the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard rabbit hole, I’m seeing some Amber apologists on here posting the ultra gaslighting bits of Rottenborn’s closing without allowing comments, so I just felt compelled to come on and make my own comment to say: 

“If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen. If you did take pictures, they’re fake. If you didn’t tell your friends, you weren’t injured. If you did tell your friends, they were part of the hoax.“ 

That is Not. TF. what we (or Camille) are saying. And it was unbelievably insulting and gross for him to frame it that way.

The reason what Amber’s done makes me so angry is because I DON’T assume anyone would lie about having suffered abuse, ever. I have argued vehemently against misogynists who DO treat women who come forward as lying until proven otherwise. So no, sir, I do not appreciate being lectured about how I’m harming women when it took the absolute mountain of evidence of her NOT being truthful to pull me away from that default. I don’t appreciate being gaslit for being upset that someone would take advantage of that default that the 99% of survivors who would never dream of lying about the abuse they’ve suffered fought, and continue to fight, so hard for. 

This is not about “if it happened you should have pictures.” This is about there being a mountain of photos, videos, and recordings proving that the incredibly severe, specific allegations she sat there recounting in gruesome detail under oath never happened. 

This is about her sitting there swearing up and down under oath that the video we all saw with our own two eyes of her completely uninjured, was her with two black eyes and a busted lip after having been brutally beaten in the face by a man who wears the equivalent of brass knuckles in rings. Not “the abuse wasn’t the type you would see in this video” - but specifically “yes, I had severe facial injuries in this video where my face looks flawless.” This is about her having carefully documented all manner of OTHER photos and videos exploiting Johnny’s struggles with addiction, and insisting that the harm he did to himself is somehow evidence of him having brutally, severely harmed her, while deliberately having avoided taken photos of herself after the alleged most severe attacks. 

No one. is saying. that the abuse has to be severe in order for it to count. No one is expecting survivors to have documented everything. SHE made the allegations so severe that they don’t match up with the reality we see. SHE made it impossible to believe she wasn’t sitting there this whole time appropriating the very real suffering others have had to go through. 

So to the survivors out there (especially women, for purposes of this discussion): 

I can’t control what others do, but please know that I believe you, and will NEVER expect any bar of proof to do so. It took a heaping mountain of proof I could see and hear with my own eyes and ears that Amber IS lying - Amber, one single woman out of the 99% who would never dream of doing so - to make me not believe her. And her lies will never make waver in standing by you. I will always believe women, and I’ll continue to call out anyone using this trial as an excuse to do otherwise. 

I just don’t believe Amber. One specific privileged cis white woman who coopted a necessary, hard-fought feminist movement as a shield for her abusive behavior. 

/// massive rant

[snl89]

Yep, I’m not religious either, but I do believe in energy and the universe, and Cory’s energy was definitely out there today <3 

[snl89]

<//3 

Stepping back into my Glee time to remember these two. 💔

[snl89]

<3

Sending all the love to my glee fam today ❤️